PROPOSAL FOR MEDILL SCHOOL OF JOURNALISM SERIES: VISIONS OF THE AMERICAN PRESS

I. Title: TheNew Journalism:The Unexpected Triumph of theLong-Form Narrative

II. Author (name and contact info)

John Pauly SaintLouis University Depaftmentof Communication 3733W. Pine Xavier300 St.Louis, MO 63108 Offi ce phone: 3 14-971-3192 Fax:314-977 -3195 E-mail:pauly @ slu.edu Home: 7651Carswold Drive St.Louis, MO 63105 31.4-725-4327

III. GeneralDescription of the Work

TheNew Journalismwas born in controversy.Tom Wolfe's first manifestoon its behalfwas written in retrospectin 1970,after almosta decadeof work by talentednonfiction writers suchas JoanDidion, Norman Mailer, Hunter Thompson,and Michael Herr. The original inspirationfor Wolfe's defensemay havebeen an insult by the writer Dwight MacDonald. ReviewingWolfe's 1965book The Kandy-KoloredTangerine-Flake Streamline Baby, "parajournalism"-an MacDonaldlabeled the new style unreliablebastard form, full of cheaptrickery, the product of a veritablewriting machine.A year later RenataAdler skeweredWolfe forhis savagelyirreverent satire of the New Yorker,which spokeof the "tiny mummies" who hauntedthe magazine'shallowed coridors. A decadelater, cloaking himself in the authority of the past,John Hersey would condemnany contemporaryjournalist who blurredthe line dividing fact and fiction. Hersey(who himself had usedcomposite charactersin his World War II reporling)declared that the legendon thejournalist's license "None simplyread, of this was madeup."

Newspaperreporters and editors,for their paft, often complainedthat the New Journalism violatedlong-held principles. They expressedoutrage over its apparentindifference to the profession',.unon. of objectivity.Even worse, Wolfe-ever the lightningrod for such controversies-proposedto reversethe moral polaritiesof the craft. What newspaper journalistsrevered-the seriouswork of political reporting-Wolfe mocked as dull, self- lmportant,and out of touch with the times.What newspaperjournalists had neglectedand trivialized-the featurestory-Wolfe glorified as the highestform of reporling.

Even now, decadeslater, editorialistscontinue to referencethe New Journalismas a parable aboutwhat becomesof reporterswho abandontheir faith in objectivity. For example,some commentatorson the JaysonBlair controversyatthe New York Timeshave cited the New Journalismas a familiarexample ofjournalists losing their bearings.Nor havefriends of the form doneit a greatservice. Academic critics haveoften collapsedthe work of writers like Wolfe, Didion, and Mailer into a more polite tale aboutthe grandtradition of literary journalism.What such accountsmiss is the historicalspecificity of the New Journalism Lxperiment-how socialtrends, market forces, and writerly ambitionsconverged in the 19k0s,and how the New Journalismemerged from that moment as a sensibilitythat would. overthree decades, subtly fold itself into Americans'discourse about journalism, politics. business,and culture.

I want to tell this story aboutthe legacyof the New Journalism.I will arguethat we should understandthe New Journalismas somethingmore than the literary inventionsof gifted individual writers, and more than an idiosyncraticchapter in the largerhistory of literary journalism.The New Journalismemerged during the 1960sand 1970sas a culturalpractice enabledand constrained by socialtrends, market forces, changes in publishingvenues- and debatesover professional values. Though I will pay closeattention to writers' namative strategies,I am particularlyinterested in how the changingmarket for magazineand book- lengthnonfiction createda home for New Journalism,and how the socialturmoil of that era madeits narrativesintellectually plausible and emotionallycompelling, for both writers and readers.Journalistic style came to signiff a largerpolitics of revolution.

My openingchapters show how a wide rangeof groupscame to considerthe New Journalism a site-of,y-boli. conflict, a placewhere they might usefully gatherto debatethe meaningof their historicalmoment, and the role thatjournalists ought to play as professionalinterpreters of that moment.The middle chapterstrace the effectsof the New Journalismthrough the 1980sand 1990s,showing how it subtlyinfluenced Americans' practices of social commentary,business reporting, journalism criticism, and ethnography'The final chapters in describethe ways in whiih the New Journalismhas been remembered and memorialized conclusion the work of literarytheorists, journalists, media historians, and socialcritics. My refusesthe now obvious g.n.ulogy, which positionsthe New Journalismas a stylistic more inventionwithin a longeitradition of literaryjournalism, in order to reclaim a denser, 1960sand historicallyparticular Interpretation of the movement.I want to reinterpretthe a tipping 1970sas a crucial-o-"niin the largerhistory of thejournalism profession, and pointin the discourseof the societyit chronicled'

talentedwriters often An importanttheme of my book is that the literary accomplishmentsof attendingto grow out of specificsocial, political, and economiccircumstances. By carefully bringing works of suchcontexts, we come to appreciatethe role that contingencyplays in nonfiction greatartistry into existence.For example,Esquire's sponsorship of provocative was inspiredby unforeseennecessity (heavy competition from Playboy),individual genius (the deft editorialhand of Harold Hayes),wider socialchanges (the emergenceof an educated,leisured mass audience), and political unrest (a profusionof socialcontroversies orr 's whichto report).Esquire sponsorshipof long magazinearlicles, in turn, helpedNew Journalistslike Wolfe. Mailer, Herr, John Sack,and Gay Talesewin contractsfor nonfiction books.changing the careerpaths that journalists might imaginefor themselves.

Archival recordsplay a crucial role in my study.Only Carol Polsgrove'sbook on Esquirein the 1960shas made significantuse of thesematerials thus far. The Esquirerecords, for example,demonstrate that Arnold Gingrich,the publisher,and Harold Hayes,the editor, worked closelywith the advertisingand salesstaff, coordinatingissue themes, covers, public speeches.and editorial decisions. The files documentthe magazine'spractices of paying authorsand of solicitingand killing, fact-checking,and editing manuscripts. Letters to the editor documentreader responses to the New Journalism,including thoseof a surprisingly largenumber of womenreaders. The Gingrichcollection includes dozens of speechesgiven to advertisingclubs and universities. I alsoplan to usethe Harold Hayescollection at Wake ForestUniversity; the contemporarywriters' collectionat BostonUniversity, which includes the papersof GeorgeGoodman, John Sack,David Halberstam,and others;the l/ew Yorker collectionat the New York PublicLibrary; and journalism school archives at the University of Missouriand the Universitvof Illinois.

IV. Work's Central Argument

A.25-Word Version:

The New Journalismrepresents more than a seriesof individual literary inventions.It symbolizeddramatic changes in readers'mores, authors' career paths, andmagazineand bookmarkets.

8.250-World Version:

Most commentatorsuse the term New Journalismto refer to the long-form magazine narrativesbeing createdin the 1960sby writers suchas Tom Wolfe, Norman Mailer, Gay Talese,Joan Didion, MichaelHerr, andHunter Thompson. More recently,critics have treatedthe New Journalismas an early versionof what they now call literaryjournalism or creativenonfiction. Their approachto the New Journalismtypically emphasizesthe literary inventivenessof the form's individual practitioners.

I proposea more deeply socialaccount of the origins and meaningof the New Journalism. My uc.ount will attendclosely to changesin the educationand sensibilitiesof middle-class readers,magazines' efforts to marketthe socialtumult of the 1960s,crises in newspaper journalists'ionception of theirprofession, the emergenceof friendlyvenues in New York. Rolling Stone,and Esquire, widening opportunitiesin the nonfiction book market.the alternativecareer paths being opened to journalists,and the reformistambitions ofjournalism schoolgraduates. These were the socialconditions that madethe narrativeinventions of the New Journalismolausible and marketable.

I alsowant to assessthe legacyof the New Journalism.My book will tracethe New Journalism'sinfluence not just on our narrativeforms, but also on our practicesof business journalism,social criticism, ethnography, and media criticism. I concludethat the New Journalismsignified a new momentin the history of Americanjournalism, and that it continuesto shapethe forms of public discoursethat journalists have committedthemselves to guard.

V. Table of Contents

My book will containnine chapters,The early chaptersfocus on how the New Journalism was understoodin its own era; the middle chaptersexplore the ways in which New Journalismsensibilities inflected American social commentary, business reporting, media criticism,and ethnography in the 1980sand 1990s.The final chaptersconsider the waysin which the New Journalismcontinues to be rememberedand memonalized,and its impact on the practiceofjournalism in the United States.

The New Journalism as Discourse

Chapter 1. The New Journalismas a Signof the Times Analyzesthe reasonswhy the New Journalismcame to be identified,disputed, and defended as a new form of writing and an icon of socialchange. Uses popular press and alternative presscoverage. writings of and interviewswith practitioners,and early scholarlydiscussions of New Journalismas a literary form. Theme:even when the discourseabout the New Journalismfocused on writers' intentionsand narrativestrategies, it also acknowledgedits significanceas a sign of cultural and political change.

chapter 2.The changingMagazine Marketplace of the 1950sand 1960s Describeshow attemptsto adaptmagazines to a more affluent,better educated middle-class audiencecreated a market for long-formjournalism, and openednew possibilitiesfor publishingnonfiction books.Draws upon readingsof new magazinesllke Rolling Stoneand New York,and archivalrecords of Esquireand the New Yorker.Theme: changes in the economicsof publishingmade the New Journalismpossible and openeda rangeof plausible careerpaths for young nonfiction writers.

Chapter 3. The New Journalism,and the Old Analyzesdebates within the journalism professionover the objectivity and personalismof the New Journalism.Draws upon trademagazines such as the Bulletin of the American Societyof NewspaperEditors, Editor and Publisher,Quill, ColumbiaJournalism Review, papersand lettersand and[More], und .tpon reviews of New Journalismworks in alternative ,..oid, ofjournalismschools and educators. Theme: the debateover the New Journalism calledattention to an emergingidentity crisis in the professionofjournalism. The New Journalism as Practice

Chapter 4. The Journalistas Cultural Critic Describeshow the New Journalismenlivened the style and tone of American cultural criticismand social commentary in the 1980sand 1990s.Uses the popularand political press, the work of Tom Wolfe and his imitators,and the critical discourseon Wolfe. Theme:the New Journalismcreated new stylesof both conservativeand liberal criticism.

Chapter 5. The Journalistas Entrepreneur Showshow the New Journalismchallenged staid, older approachesto businessjournalism, inventingnew stylesof reportingon business.Examines the explosionof businessreporting "Adam in the 1970sand 1980sand identifiesthe careerof Smith" (GeorgeGoodman) as an exemplarof that change.Theme: the New Journalismencouraged new ways of writing about business,not only in popularmagazines but alsoin tradepublications, nonfiction books, and televisionprograms.

Chapter 6. The Journalistas Anti-Hero Documentsthe iconic role playedby the New Journalismin ongoingdebates about journalists'professional identity. Draws upon publicationssuch as the ColumbiaJournalism Reviewand American Journalism Review, discussions ofjournalism education. and popular debatesabout journalism. Discusses Hunter Thompson as a symbolicfigure in suchdebates. Theme:journalistscontinued to criticizethe failuresof the New Journalismeven as they were acceptingthe critiquesof writers like Thompson,Mailer, Het:r,and Didion.

Chapter 7. The Journalistas Ethnographer Documentsthe cultural turn in reporting,and its relationto ethnographicapproaches in sociologyand anthropology.Uses scholarly discussions of ethnographyand cultural studies, and documentsthe turn to immersionreporting by writers suchas JaneKramer, Ted Conover,Tom French,Tracy Kidder, and others.Theme: recent repofiers have formalized thereportorial innovations with which theNew Journalistshad experimented.

The New Journalism as Memory

Chapter 8. The Invention of Literary Journalismand CreativeNonfiction Discussesrecent attempts to position the New Journalismas an exampleof a larger genre calledliterary journalism or creativenonfiction. Uses collections of literaryiournalism and booksand arlicles by academiccritics and proponents of the new forms.Theme: critics' efforls to framethe New Journalismas literaryjournalism selectivelyremembers the New Journalismand neglectsthe socialand economicconditions that gave it life.

Conclusion

Chapter 9. WhateverBecame of the New Journalism? Theme:rather than file away the New Journalismas anotherfailed experimentof the 1960s. or a curiouschapter in the history of literaryjournalism, we shouldrecognize the mark it has left on Americans'discourse about the media,culture, politics, and business. The New Journalismalso offers a cautionarytale aboutwhat Harold Bloom has called the anxietyof influencein literature.The 1960sbrought to the fore journalistswho remain amongthe most popular,visible, and successfulnonfiction writers in the United States-so much so that youngerwriters and reviewersnow sometimescomplain that the old radicalshave become the new establishmentof nonfiction.

VI. Existing Books on the Subject

Thereis no shortageof works devotedto praisingthe literary charmsof the New Journalism. Duringits own time, severalbooks about the new work appeared:Harold Hayes'collection of Esquirepieces, Smiling Throughthe Apocalypse.' Esquire's History of the Sixties(McCall Publishing,1969); Michael Johnson,The I'{ewJournalism (University of KansasPress, 1971);Tom Wolfe and E. W. Johnson'scanonical anthology The New Journalism (Harper andRow, 1973);Charles C. Flippen,Liberating the Media; TheNev,Journalism (Acropolis Books, \974); EveretteDennis and William Rivers,Other Voices:The New Jcturnalismin Americu(Canfield Press, 1974); and Marshall Fishwick, New .Iournalism(Bowling Green UniversityPopular Press, 1975).

RonaldWeber (Ed.), The Reporteras Artist; A Look at the New Journalism Controversy (HastingsHouse, 1914),remains the bestcollection of contemporarypieces about the early controversy.Some of the essaysin NormanSims (Ed.), Literary Journalism in lhe Twentieth Century(Oxford University Press, 1990) also deal with theNew Journalism.C)ne can find biographicaland critical profiles of a numberof New Journalistsin ThomasConnery (Ed.),I Sourcebookof American Literary Journalism;Representative Writers in an EmergingGenre (GreenwoodPress, \992) andArthur Kaul (Ed.),American Literary,Iournalists, 1915-1995 (GaleResearch,1997).

TheNew Journalismhas inspired a long stringof literarycritical works. The first books tendedto focus on the factlfiction distinctionand on claims by writers suchas Truman "nonfiction Capoteand Norman Mailer to have developednew genre,the novel." The early works typically tried to articulatethe relationbetween fact and fiction (usually by showing the fictivenessof even factualnarratives), and to situatethe New .lournalismin longer traditionsof literary craft. The early generationof suchstudies included Masud Zavarzadeh. TheMythopoeic Reality; ThePostwar American Nonfiction Novel (University of Illinois Press,1976);John Hollowell, Fact and Fiction; TheNew Journalismand theNonfiction Novel(University of North CarolinaPress, 1977'); Ronald Weber, The Literature of Fact" Literary l{onfiction in American Writing (Ohio University Press,1980); .Iohn Hellmann. Fablei of Fact; The Jr{ewJournalism as New Fictiorz(University of Illinois Press,l98l); and BarbaraFoley, Telling the Truth; The Theoryand Practice oJ'DocumentaryFiclion (Cornell Universitypress, 19gZ). By the late 1980s,literary critics still discussedthe fictivenessof a factualnarratives, but they beganto positionthe New Journalismin other ways as well-as the form of creativenonfiction that sharesimportant connections with other examplesof later genre,such as autobiography,the personalessay, travel writing, and naturewriting. This S4'/eas Argument" ContemporaryAmerican leneration-Nonfictionof studiesincludes: Chris Anderson, (SouthernIllinois UniversityPress, 1987), and Anderson (Ed.), Literary Nonfiction;Theory, Criticism, Pedagogy (Southern Illinois UniversityPress, 1989); Barbara Lounsberry, TheArt oJFact; ContemporaryArtists of l'{onfiction(Greenwood, 1990); W. " " RossWinterowd, The Rhetoric of the Other Literature(Southern Illinois UniversityPress. 1990);Phyllis Frus,The Politics and Poeticsof JournalisticNarralive: The Timelyand the Timeless(Cambridge University Press,t994); Daniel Lehman,Matters o.fFact. Reading lVonfictionover the Edge (Ohio StateUniversity Press,1997); and JohnRussell, Reciprocitiesin lhe NonfictionNovel (University of GeorgiaPress, 2000).

Scholarsfrom journalism and media studiesbackgrounds have continuedto work in and aroundthese issues. The frrst collectionssuch as Norman Sims (Ed.), TheLiterary Journalists(Ballantine, 1984). and Sims and Mark Kramer (Eds),Literary .Journalism:A lttrewCollection of the BestAmerican Nonfiction (Ballantine,1995), situated the New Journalistswithin a longertradition of literaryjournalism that alsopaid prominentattention to New Yorkerwriters like Joe Mitchell and JohnMcPhee. John Hartsock'sI History oJ AmericanLiterary Journalism; TheEmergence of a Modern Narralive Form (University of MassachusettsPress, 2000) has extended this line of analysis.Recent anthologies have followedthese same principles of collection.They includeKevin Kerraneand Ben Yagoda (Eds.),The Art o.fFact. A HistoricalAnthology of LiteraryJournalism (Scribner, 1 997); R. ThomasBerner (Ed.), TheLiterature o/'Journalism:Text and Context(Strata, 1999); and JeanChance and William McKeen (Eds.),Literary Journalism:A Reader(Wadsworth ThomsonLearning, 200 1 ).

I havefound much to admirein CarolPolsgrove's It Wasn'lPretQ, Folks, Bul Didn't We HaveFun;Esquire in the SixtiesQ.Jorton, 1995). Polsgrove was the first to demonstratethe value of using primary sourcesabout themagazine'sinternal operations. But shefocuses only on Esquire,and then predominantlyon editor-writerrelations and the role of Harold Hayes.Polsgrove's account adds depth to more popularhistories of magazinesthat published the New Journalism,such as Roberl SamAnson, GoneCrazy and Back Again; The Riseand Fall of the Rotling StoneGeneration (Doubleday, 1981), and Robert Draper,Rolling Stone Magazine;The UncensoredHistory (Doubleday,1990). Here and there one finds acute reflectionson the New Journalismin autobiographicalworks by practitioners,such as Garry Wills. LeaclTime; A Journalist'sEducation (Doubleday, 1983), Willie Morris,New York Days (Liftle, Brown, 1993),Arnold Gingrich,Nothing But People: The Early Days at Esquire,a PersonalHistory 1928-1958(Crown, 1971),and.iohn Sack, Fingerprint; The Aulebiographyof an AmericanMan (RandomHouse, 1982).A year agoPublishers Weekly notedthat Crown had contractedwith the music writer Marc Weingarlenfor a collectionof interviewswith New Journalistslike Wolfe, Thompson,and Talese, to be publishedin 2004 underthe title The Gang II/ho Couldn't Write Straight.

Two otherworks deservemention, as socialhistories that demonstratehow the American middle-classof the 1950sand 1960sused consumer culture to remakeits sensibilitiesand senseof itself. ThomasFrank, The Conquestof Cool; BusinessCulture, Counterculture,ond the Riseof Hip Consumerism(University of ChicagoPress, 1997) documents the rise of hip approachesin consumeradverlising, and David Abrahamson,Magazine-Made America; The Cittural Transformationof the PostwarPeriodical (HamptonPress, 1996) describes the emergenceof new consumermagazines, at a time when old massmagazines like Life' 's, Collier and SaturclayEvening Posl were dying. In a sense,publicationslike Esquire sought to recapturea broad,middle-class audience that now thought of itself as educated,hip, and politicallyaware.

VII. Thoughtson Target Audiences

I imaginemy book beingused in classessuch on journalismhistory, literary journalism. or masscommunication and society;in American studiesor history coursesthat deal with the 1960sand its legacy;and possibly in Englishclasses on literaryjournalism and creative nonfiction.I alsothink that this sort of book might find a readershipamong journalists and generallyeducated readers with an interestin American culture,as well as amongjournalism educators.

Below is a partial list of universitiesthat offer coursesin the theory and practiceof literary "literary "syllabi" journalism.My Googlesearch combining journalism"* turnedup dozens of entries-suggestingthat thereare probablyother universities that also offer thesecourses but whosefaculty have not postedthe syllabi on the Web. The rangeof coursetitles suggests the popularityof the topic. "Literary PartialList of UniversitiesOffering CoursesEntitled Journalism"

ColumbiaUnion College ColumbiaUniversity Fairfield University IndianaUniversity (alsocourse on EthnographicReporting) NorthwesternUniversitY ProvidenceCollege SaintLouis UniversitY TowsonUniversitY University of Alabama (two courses) Universityof Colorado-Boulder University of Florida University of Hong Kong University of Massachusetts-Amherst University of Minnesota University of Nebraska-Omaha University of North Carolina-Pembroke University of Rochester University of St. Thomas

other universitv coul.sesFocusing on LiterarYJournalism

CreativeNonfiction Writing (\lational University,Pennsylvania State University) Critical Perspectiveson Journalism(University of Pennsylvania) History and Theory of Literary Journalism(University of California at Irvine) The Journalistas Novelist (University of Texas) The Journalistas Storyteller(George Washington University, SouthernOregon University) Literary JournalismWorkshop (George Mason University) Literary Nonfiction (ArmstrongAtlantic StateUniversity FrancisMarion University, MarianCollege) Literatureand Journalism(Dublin City University) The Literatureof Literary Journalism(University of Oregon,Washington State University) Writing CreativeNonfiction (University of Richmond) writing LiteraryJournalism (Bryn Mawr College,Haverford college)

VIII. Scheduleand Length

I am planningto completea draft of the manuscriptby February2005. In spring 2004 I will be working on the manuscriptduring my sabbatical,and making trips to the archivesat Michigan,Wake Forest, Missouri, Illinois, and either Boston or New York. I am oneof my campus'stwo nomineesfor an NEH Stipendfor summer2004. The 60,000-wordlimit seems appropriatefor the type of book I am writing. I want the argumentto be rich and theoretically and historicallyastute, but the style to be fluid and concise.

IX. Summary BiograPhY

.TohnPauly is professorof Communicationat SaintLouis University.where he teaches courseson literaryjournalism, journalism history,popular culture, qualitative research methods.and communicationtheory. His researchfocuses on the history and sociologyof the media,especially the history of debatesover journalism as a cultural institution.