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Storytelling, comma, non-fiction division
Jul. 19th, 2006 07:10 pmDave Winer points to this piece by Reuters, which manages, appallingly, to set up a false dichotomy in the very title:
"Storytelling, not journalism, spurs most blogs"
Look, Mr. MacMillan -- Journalism is storytelling. Mind you, it's a very specific kind of storytelling, hence the title of this post. A different way of putting this is when I point out, "There's a reason why the Journalism School of most universities gets peeled off the English Dept., and not the History Dept."
Consider the very base unit, the atom, of journalism. It is -- surprise! -- the "story".
Because journalism is told in stories, that means those stories generally follow narrative structure. There is a protagonist, an antagonist, conflict, and a story arc. There isn't always a resolution, because those darned deadlines get in the way. Which means journalism stories are also generally serials.
It is precisely for this reason that "good news" is generally underreported. Why? Well, the Wall Street Journal had a feature story (there we go again) about a decade ago, and the response of most editors ran along the lines of, "We don't report 'good news' because it's boring."
Pause and think about that.
The response wasn't, "We don't report 'good news' because that would be inaccurate." Nor was it, "We don't report 'good news' because it's unimportant."
No, the argument made was, "We don't report 'good news' because it's boring."
From a strictly factual, "unbiased" point-of-view, why would "boringness" -- that is, there is no conflict, so there is no story arc -- why would it matter?
Answer: Because news -- journalism -- is the business of telling stories.
Hell, it says so on the label.
This is why I loved Neal Stephenson's piece, a few years back in Wired, where he suggested there be cameras put in a regular grid -- say, 10km by 10km -- around the planet, and then have a cable channel that did nothing but randomly broadcast footage from those camera at about a minute apiece (I'm summarizing, and missing the fine points, I'm sure). His point was that such a channel would show just how densely concentrated "news" is, and how in the overwhelming majority of places on Earth, to the overwhelming majority of people, "news" doesn't happen.
It's just a serial, like Dickens, or King. Only, you know, non-fiction.
PS: Amusingly, Robert MacMillan, the author of Reuters' piece, has a blog of his own. I guess it's for stories that get spiked. Or he can't stop storytelling. Or something.
"Storytelling, not journalism, spurs most blogs"
Look, Mr. MacMillan -- Journalism is storytelling. Mind you, it's a very specific kind of storytelling, hence the title of this post. A different way of putting this is when I point out, "There's a reason why the Journalism School of most universities gets peeled off the English Dept., and not the History Dept."
Consider the very base unit, the atom, of journalism. It is -- surprise! -- the "story".
Because journalism is told in stories, that means those stories generally follow narrative structure. There is a protagonist, an antagonist, conflict, and a story arc. There isn't always a resolution, because those darned deadlines get in the way. Which means journalism stories are also generally serials.
It is precisely for this reason that "good news" is generally underreported. Why? Well, the Wall Street Journal had a feature story (there we go again) about a decade ago, and the response of most editors ran along the lines of, "We don't report 'good news' because it's boring."
Pause and think about that.
The response wasn't, "We don't report 'good news' because that would be inaccurate." Nor was it, "We don't report 'good news' because it's unimportant."
No, the argument made was, "We don't report 'good news' because it's boring."
From a strictly factual, "unbiased" point-of-view, why would "boringness" -- that is, there is no conflict, so there is no story arc -- why would it matter?
Answer: Because news -- journalism -- is the business of telling stories.
Hell, it says so on the label.
This is why I loved Neal Stephenson's piece, a few years back in Wired, where he suggested there be cameras put in a regular grid -- say, 10km by 10km -- around the planet, and then have a cable channel that did nothing but randomly broadcast footage from those camera at about a minute apiece (I'm summarizing, and missing the fine points, I'm sure). His point was that such a channel would show just how densely concentrated "news" is, and how in the overwhelming majority of places on Earth, to the overwhelming majority of people, "news" doesn't happen.
It's just a serial, like Dickens, or King. Only, you know, non-fiction.
PS: Amusingly, Robert MacMillan, the author of Reuters' piece, has a blog of his own. I guess it's for stories that get spiked. Or he can't stop storytelling. Or something.
