Blog 20 - Our short stories

*I use numbers in front of the sentences that correspond with the direct questions suggested by Dr. Rodgers. 

Sadie’s “The Friday Crew:

I really enjoyed reading this story – I thought it was well written and thoughtful in its literary description. 1) Sadie used precise word choice; status detail; and third-person dialogue. 3) The point of view of the story was from that of the Friday crew through Sadie’s eyes. 6) My favorite paragraph is: “The kitchen is a tight space shaped like a box with little storage room and no air conditioning. The walls are covered in stain and tattered copies of recipes. A sign above the stove proclaims, “Give us this day our daily bread.” 7) I suppose if I had to, I’d suggest a deeper look at the subjects to get that expressive interview, but we all know we were on a time constraint. 8) I was a little thrown by the introductory Bible quote – I see the reasoning behind it, but it seemed to push religion too hard, if that makes sense. 9) I wanted to hear from the people eating the food (but I know that wasn’t the point of the story). [Note: The quote from the man with piercing blue eyes who says he is “just so damn hungry” was excellent and emotion-provoking.]

Casey’s story

I thought this story was really well done and was impressive in Casey’s ability to do a real “news” story done in literary style, if that makes sense. 1) Casey used short and clear sentences; third-person; subjective arrangement of reported information to effect; and careful and precise word selection. 4) I thought that the transitioning from literary description to news was very smooth. Also, there were times when it felt like we were reading the mind of Alyssa, which was excellent. 5) The back-and-forth between Alyssa and Dr. Senesac's point of view was a bit discombobulating, as I didn’t know whose eyes to view this experience through.  I would also suggest not using words like “for example” (para 1) and “though” (para 5) as it reminds us that it is Casey who is speaking to us. 9) I would have liked to heard more about the fainting stories. [Note: I once was in a funeral home prep room on a class field trip in high school when the quarterback of the football team passed out cold.]

Ben’s “The Miami Heat Experience”

This story was unique for many reasons, first of which might have because it is written in first-person. (How did I not know we could do this?) I felt almost like it was Bob Greene or the like writing for his weekly column. 3) The point of view was from that of Ben himself. 4-5) The column-like writing worked well for the most part, with the exception of the second paragraph on page 2, which took a strange turn in straight sports news. I liked the next-to-last paragraph in which Ben takes a step back and observes the scene. His jaded comments are almost Holden Caufield-esque as he silently scoffs at the crowd. My favorite sentence was: “A passerby wearing a Dwyane Wade jersey said, to no one in particular, “Welcome to the circus.” 8) I was a little confused in the beginning as to whether Ben had romantic feelings toward Chloe (hence the feeling of rejection) or whether he just wanted to go to the game. 9) I wanted to hear more about the people coming to see the game – why were they there, were they as uninterested as Ben thought?

Rachel’s story

I really liked this profile on track coach Will – the descriptions were interesting and I felt like I knew a lot about this person after I was done. 5) The tenses in the story are a little confusing, as they jump from third- to first-person. I’m thinking that some statistics on running (like overtraining/overeating) could have been inserted to make it more newsworthy, though my own story is lacking in that regard. 6) My favorite paragraph was the first full paragraph on page two, where she describes his agelesseness. Some of the quotes were truly expressive, such as “It’s an addiction, right?” he tells me, in a gentle, rolling lecture. “We could be drinking or doing drugs. Some of my family does that. But we don’t. We train.” 8) I was a little confused by the ending – I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to realize beforehand that Rachel was one of Will’s runners? Also, are we supposed to think that he might be gay or was I reading too much into it?

Michelle’s “The Retirement Home for Horses, Inc.”

I really enjoyed this story – what an interesting topic … I wish I had thought of it. 2) Literary techniques used included careful and precise word selection; third-person (mostly); and expressive dialogue. 4) Like in Rachel’s story, I was a little confused by the tenses jumping from third- to first-person point of view. 5) The transition from literary description to newsworthy information was very smooth and was impressively executed. (I found this is way harder to do that seems fair.) 6) My favorite passage might be the introduction – it is so fitting and so simultaneously interesting: “Mill Creek is a place where horses retire. It is a place where sometimes the circus horses still do tricks when a toddler comes up with a carrot, where the police horses occasionally kick down their fence and were graves are dug 12 at a time.” – well done. 9) I guess I would say that I want to hear more descriptions throughout like those found in the first page. 10) I might say that at some point, the story gives way to a few too many interviews – I think you could have stuck with the owners and one or two more and dug deeper with them. (Easy for me to say, I know.) 

Blog 19 – ‘Process Journalism’

Tracy Kidder, born in 1945, is a Pulitzer-prizing winning author who attended Harvard and studied at the University of Iowa. He is best known for “The Soul of a New Machine,” a meticulous account of the development of Data General’s minicomputer. Other works include, “Mountains beyond Mountains,” “My Detachment,” “Home Town,” “Old Friends,” “Among Schoolchildren,” and “House.” Kidder’s latest book, “Strength in What Remains,” is about a Burundian genocide survivor and was released last year. Kidder is known for his distinctive style of research, for which he spends considerable time observing and, in the case of “The Soul of a New Machine,” producing “a more textured portrait of the development process than a purely retrospective study might.”

The introduction of “The Soul of a New Machine” starts out with a scenic description of Data General’s site location and incorporates some elements of literary journalism, such as, listing, a voice of the narrator (and some first-person point-of-view), and status details. The following excerpt from the introduction (second paragraph) serves as an excellent example of the “nonfiction novel” aspect for which Kidder is aiming: 

“A few miles north of the junction of Route 495 and the Massachusetts Turnpike, off an access road, sits a two-story brick building, surrounded by parking lots. A sign warns against leaving a car there without authority. The building itself looks like a fort. It has narrow windows, an American flag on a pole out front, a dish antenna on a latticed tower. Mounted on several corners of the roofs, and slowly turning, are little TV cameras.”

However, aside from this descriptive introduction, I found the first chapter of “The Soul of a New Machine” to be mostly informative instead of literary, with only a twist of personal insight, such as seen in the following sentence,

“The TV cameras on the roofs, the first defense against unscrupulous competitors and other sorts of spies and thieves, must comfort those who have a stake in what goes on inside. As for me, I imagined that somewhere in the building men in uniforms were watching me arrive, and I felt discouraged from walking on the grass.”

To me, these excerpts read as if Kidder is a straight-laced journalist, but aims liven up his process reporting with some literary elements. [Full disclosure, however, I was slightly bored with the topic at hand.]

Though once I started to delve into Kidder’s other works, I began to see the literary journalism that I’ve come to love this semester. For example, his book, “Among School Children” chronicles the dedication of a fifth-grade teacher in Holyoke, Massachusetts, in her effort to teach “the economically and emotionally deprived urban children in her classroom.” His work is truly immersive and from the excerpts I perused on Google books, the writing is fascinatingly descriptive and the product of a long, arduous, (and eye-opening) reporting process. Equally as enticing is Kidder’s latest book, “Strength That Remains,” in which the author recounts the story of Deo, a Burundian former medical student who becomes an American émigré, told in flashbacks. Kidder is described as writing with “an anthropologist’s eye and a novelist’s pen” and allows his readers to walk in the footsteps of one subject and “see worlds new and old afresh.”

In a certain way, process journalism – like all literary journalism – takes on the magic of combining hard fact and the personal in a way that broadens the readers’ world lens. If done well, the practice should inform and simultaneously move readers toward realization and, in some cases, compassion. Story ideas that might lend itself to this type of literary journalism might be tales of war/tragedy or expressive subjects with a unique history/story. However, Kidder makes it seem as if one could write about practically any topic, from American elementary schools to third-world countries.

The major hindrances I would foresee in this style of literary journalism would be two-fold: patience and time. Kidder’s writing takes on an almost Capote-like amount of research and immersion and a journalist would have to be truly dedicated to the subject or event to be willing to put this much time and effort into the process. I’m not sure I could tackle this style. Four months into writing my thesis and I’m already bored of the content. However, given the unique opportunity (and privilege) to be paid for writing an in-depth, immersion nonfiction novel, I am sure that my love for research and narrative would prevail.  

[Note: When reading the blog assignment, I first thought that Dr. Rodgers was referring to another “process journalism,” which is a media technique that involves telling the reader what you know (and don’t know) in practically real time. That would have made for a very different blog, indeed.]

Blog 18 - 'In Defense of Literary Journalism'

Avis Meyer’s “In Defence of Literary Journalism” seeks to pay tribute “to the insight and resolve of journalism’s literary progenitors, the essayists and ‘spectators’ of the eighteenth-century England and her American colonies.’” Meyer begins this passionate essay by pointing out that literary journalism dates back to the mid-seventeenth century, and English essayists – such as Joseph Addison and Richard Steele – bridged the gap between journalism and literature. These paths of literary journalism, he argues, “have followed a parallel course.” The current [twentieth century] American press is “grounded in the libertarian press of the seventeenth- and eighteenth century literary England.” As if to dramatize and hit home this point, Meyers states,

“The effects of such literary precepts upon the American press, as with many other facets of our society, may be traced to those British colonists who sloughed off the cloak of authoritarianism and, lodged aboard their fragile ships, scurried for the North American continent, tenacity their companion and freedom their balm.”

Meyer even goes as far as to say, “The ties that bind English literature and the American press, English teachers’ protestations to the contrary, are as firm as the rock upon which John Smith reputedly stood.” With these grand (heart-string-pulling) parallels, Meyer is seeking to both trace the roots of literary (and current) journalism and provide a kind of legitimacy. He points out with importance that eighteenth-century “critics” [note the quotes here] did not make the contemporary distinction between literature and journalism. Next, he maps the many facets of the art from Defoe to Twain to Crane to London and all the way through to the twentieth century.

Literary journalism, according to Meyer, is for “expos[ing] the flaws and scars of and for the American citizenry,” touching the readership “effectively,” and bringing to life “images and experiences.” The author states with great fervor that,

“When one rereads and compares the lead editorials of The New York Times,  columns of Walter Lippman, Harrison Salisbury, and E.B. White, a difference in passing and idiom may be apparent, but the intensity and purpose remain as constant and clear as in the philosophical essays of Oliver Goldsmith or the early ‘editorials’ of DeFoe.”

Meyer’s most to-the-point argument and defense of literary journalism is made clear in his final paragraph:

“Turning this goal into a tradition, for centuries newspapers have offered their readers a colorful, wrinkles-and-all family portrait. There is a constant moral purpose reflected in the daily writing that looks back from the pages of our past, as the literary journalists form their perceptions and direct their pens. They wrote, and write, to please their audience and thus themselves; they write, and they are read, and they write again. This, every twenty-four hours.”

In terms of why Meyer is defending literary journalism, it is clear that he is in awe of the art and practice and finds great importance in its continuance. However, more than that, Meyer is rewriting the history of journalism in a way for all of those critics and academics who tend to lump “legitimate” journalism in pile A and literary journalism in pile B. 

Blog 17 - 'A Napoleon Complex'

A half a dozen men and women gathered around a bench in the Northeast dog park. The air was crisp and cool with a hint of chimney smoke. The owners wore sweatshirts, fleece jackets and fuzzy hats layered with a fine dust from the dark corners of closets.

In the distance, a couple sat on a covered park bench. The man had his arm around the woman. They both wore dark, hooded jackets and sipped out of steaming styrofoam cups. A slice of setting sun settled on their backs as they leaned in to each other for warmth.

The dogs circled one another, sniffing, prancing and scuffling. A bull dog mix climbed up on the bench next to his owner, a petite woman in her 60s wearing glasses and a black ski cap. Slinking back onto his haunches, the dog’s hind legs stuck up at a sharp angle. A man sitting on the opposite end of the bench pretended to read a newspaper.

Occasionally, another owner would enter the park with dog in tow. The sitting bull dog’s owner chatted with another man about the cool weather. Then she spotted someone she knew heading toward the gate.

“Like, Dale’s dad over there, you can tell he’s from Alaska. A t-shirt! Are you crazy? You can tell you’re from up north. I’m surprised you even wore socks with those sandals.”

The bespeckled woman wore a general look of belonging. The owners formed a semi-circle around her as she commented on their dogs.

“Zeus! Come here, Zeus! … Wow, not even four months and already humping. … Stop it, guys! Geez, I should have worn my earplugs. Go bark somewhere else! … The smaller dogs, they’re always the meanest. It’s like they’re making up for their size. What do you call that?”

           “A Napoleon complex,” the t-shirt-laden man retorted.

A man wearing paint-splattered jeans and canvas shoes talked on a cell phone and gazed up into the tree branches with his tired, sun-lined face.

“The economy has everyone up in arms. No one trusts anyone anymore. I just don’t understand it.”

 The man wandered off to the other side of the park for privacy. His mini-Australian shepherds with brown and black speckled fur and blue eyes followed close behind.

A man and a woman stood closely, debating the morality of euthanasia.

“Apparently, if your dog destroys another animal, the county of Alachua has the right to destroy your dog. To give out the death sentence. I wasn’t aware of that before … ”

The man looked up, his adam’s apple bobbing violently as he choked on the words.

“This one’s sister cornered an old cat and killed it.  … She was just doing what dogs do – chasing cats.”

The woman cast her eyes downward. “Except this time she caught it.”

Suddenly, two men in faded navy uniforms roared by on an ATV, its wheels falling about a foot wider than the paved path parallel to the chain-linked fence. As the men rolled past, the dozen or so dogs formed a tight herd and followed along, barking manically. The men stopped near the entrance and one walked purposefully toward a metal barrel full of tied-off black and blue bags. The other man sauntered toward the gate and began to laugh at the wailing dogs. He spotted a tiny brown Chihuahua wearing a pale pink sweater with sparkling silver stripes – an early Christmas present.

“Oooohh are you tough in your pink sweater?! You’re so tough in your little pink sweater! Aren’t you tough! Ruff! Rrrrruff!”

The pack of dogs began to circle each other frantically, barking angrily at the shouting man. A beagle sat down and bayed while a pit bull mix growled throatily. The Chihuahua’s owner walked hurriedly toward his dog and scooped him up, saving him from the taunting man. His eyes were wide underneath raised eyebrows as he walked back toward the crowd near the bench.

“Well … that was weird,” one woman said. 

The uniformed man, still laughing, turned to climb back on the ATV. The dogs continued to howl long after the men were out of sight.

Blog 16 – ‘Drift’

In “Drift,” Morris Markey acts as an omnipresent reporter as he takes the reader on a journey to where paupers and the unidentified dead are buried. “Drift” is arguably similar in purpose to “The Things That Carried Him” in the notion of following the path of the deceased (and the subsequent procedure and tradition discovered); however, it is extremely different in that Jones is attempting to breathe life into his subject through his death, while Markey is emphasizing the emotionless nature of his subject’s death.

In terms of literary techniques, Markey uses the “I as camera” approach and serves for the reader as a fly on the wall as he listens to morgue and religious civil servants go through the process of burying the unknown. He writes as if he is not asking questions at all, but simply listening in on the conversations. Markey makes use of scene-by-scene construction – he takes the reader from the morgue to Hart’s Island, peppering in matter-of-fact details in between. His use of third-person narrative serves to give the reader a rare form of authenticity in its events and subjects instead of simply reporting the facts. Markey uses dialogue sparingly, but when he does use it, it is to heighten the effect of procedure (and not emotions) in death. The author also makes careful and precise word selection for literary effect throughout, as he makes reference to religion and Hell and man’s ambiguity. He dehumanizes the unidentified man with words such as “eggs like this,” Number 48,227, and “this unidentified.” He conjures up dreariness with words such as “solitary misery,” “the dreadful squalor,” “down in the cellar,” the black-painted death boat, and “eternal filth of oil and refuse.” Especially toward the end, Markey begins to allude to Hell and the institutionalization of religion. The Riverside boat, painted an ominous black, is almost like the grim reaper pushing its way “toward the narrow channel of Hell Gate” while the “ancient engines chanted a dirge in monotone.” Related to word choice, Markey’s use of capitalization throughout is interesting, as he selects the following words for this that arguably would not traditionally be used as proper nouns: Morgue, Headquarters, Number 48,227, Hell Gate, Sound, and the Island.

The most prominent theme throughout “Drift” is emotionless procedure. Even the tugboat captain “lifts his hat stolidly” as the Riverside vessel drifts past. Markey even almost makes fun of this matter-of-fact look at death with the following statement: “All of that lugubrious internment was accomplished in an incredibly short space of time.” His focus is on the routine and he offers no sympathy for the unidentified man (Number 48,227) consistently through to the end, when he concludes with the clerk filing paperwork to receive the man’s $34 left behind “when he decided he had enough living.”

Bio:

Morris Markey (1899-1950) was born in Alexandria, Va., and went to school in Richmond. He was working as a reporter at the New York World when he was poached by The New Yorker founding editor Harold Ross, who told him to “roam the city and write down what you see.” Markey’s “Reporter at Large” pieces included traveling thousands of miles and interviewing hundreds of ordinary Americans. According to “Art of Fact,” Markey’s articles helped establish The New Yorker as “a magazine that could be serious as well as light,” as he “explored every stratum of society.” He later worked as a Hollywood scriptwriter and freelance journalist.

Story ideas:

1) *Perhaps more than most, I am aware of the (not-so-outdated) pressure of marriage on young professional women. I would like to conduct in-depth interviews with 4-5 young professional women in Gainesville who will (hopefully) open up to me about the pressures of making a simultaneously successful marriage, career, and family. (This will be placed against the backdrop of marriage statistics in Gainesville and expert interviews on the subject of balancing advanced education and marriage.)

2) I would find a recovering alcoholic in his/her early 20s in Gainesville who has been sober for a few years. How did things go so wrong so early for this person and how did Alcoholics Anonymous change this? This would be a look at the personal life of one young alcoholic in the overarching look at Gainesville’s local recovery program.

* = preferred

Blog 15 – Undercover reporting

All reporters go undercover to a degree. When covering certain events, such the local rodeo, the reporter will play the part, so to speak. Wearing a three-piece suit will not be conducive to immediate and helpful interviews, so the reporter puts on blue jeans and aims to fit in with his or her subjects. This isn’t, by any means, going “undercover,” but it suggests that even the most ethically stringent reporter must recognize that some pieces of information simply cannot be gathered without some wiggle room. How much wiggle room is up for debate.

In reference to Bob Steele’s “Beware the Dangers of ‘Testing the System,’” it is not clear how one goes about determining whether the topic in question has “adequate” or “inadequate” ethical justification. What if a reporter had a seemingly solid lead that a certain corporation was torturing human subjects for medical trials, but, once inside, learned there was no such thing occurring. Does it have to end in a scathing exposé for it to be “ethically justified”? Ethical justification might, unfortunately, mean the following question: does the end justify the means?  

I wholeheartedly agree with Greene’s statement below:  

“We must recognize the considerable ethical and legal dangers associated with any form of undercover reporting and deceptive tactics designed to test systems. Any good we might seek can quickly be outweighed by the harm we cause.”

I’m not sure that any editor or reporter can objectively determine whether or not information obtained is “of profound (enough) importance” to justify the use of deception. When all other alternatives for obtaining the same information have been exhausted, it would appear that there is not enough journalistic meat to the story. Furthermore, bringing in examples such as “To Catch a Predator” simply make the practice laughable and subject to the most exaggerated entertainment value.

And the heart of it, for me, really lies in Greene’s pivotal question (from the ABC-Food Lion case):

“Is it ever justifiable for a journalist to violate the principle of honesty to honor the principle upon which journalism is founded, a duty to provide the public with meaningful, accurate and comprehensive information about significant issues?”

Perhaps I am too ethically stringent or simply from the old-school journalism variety, but I have to answer a resounding “no.” Outstanding, society-altering exposés have been done without the journalist going undercover (Watergate comes to mind), and it tarnishes the good name of journalism to gather material under false pretenses. (That being said, I’ll certainly read an undercover story’s revelations, but it will not be my – or hopefully my newspapers’ – conscious on the line.) 

Blog 14 – ‘The Fight to Live’

Al Stump (1916-1995) was an author and sports writer. He graduated from the University of Washington, was an apprentice at the Portland Orgonian, and built a successful freelance career for which he was a regular at “True” magazine.  In 1961, Stump was the ghostwriter for Cobb’s (arguably sugarcoated) memoir, “My Life in Baseball” and he also wrote Cobb’s biography titled “Cobb: A Biography.” Stump later wrote a more critical biography of Cobb in 1994 titled: Cobb: The Life and Times of the Meanest Man Who Ever Played Baseball.” For this story (and for the memoir/biographies), Stump lived with Cobb for 10 months, first in his luxurious hunting lodge on the crest of Lake Tahoe and then a variety of places, from seedy hotels to his (electricity deprived) San Francisco mansion. Stump, without a doubt, practices immersion for this article, and, appears to have gotten relatively close to Cobb, praying with him and, at times, calling himself Cobb’s only friend.

Ty Cobb in his legendary days.

The purpose of this story, in my opinion, is 1) to demystify a public legend (much like that of Bob Greene’s “So We Meet at Last Mr. Bond”), and, 2) to offer up the stark reality that death is immanent for all, even those like Cobb who seem superhuman and untouchable.  “The Fight to Live,” was published in True magazine in 1961. The scenes vary in timing but are entirely centered around Stump and Cobb – mostly with Stump following him around, trying to keep him complacent. The story is not about sports or baseball, but about a miserly, rebellious man at the end of his life. According to “Art of Fact, Stump “dramatizes the psychopathic ferocity that made Cobb such a great individual performer, while evoking the universal struggle of an old man raging against the dying of the light.”

The story follows “True” magazine’s rapid, narrative pace – the tempo of which also acts as the double purpose of capturing Cobb’s restless energy. Stump uses scene-by-scene construction connected with dialogue that aims to delve deeper into the character. The entire story is written in first-person narration and historical present tense. The author uses his own account in addition to others’ voices (Cobb’s family, former associates, etc.) and Cobb’s own voice to help describe the man. For example, the text states:

“He carried a gun in the big league and scared the hell out of us. He’s mean, tricky and dangerous. Look out he doesn’t blow up some night and clip you with a bottle. He specializes in throwing bottles.”

Or:

“Nobody can live with Ty. Nobody ever has. That includes two wives, who left him, butlers, housekeepers, chauffeurs, nurses, and a few mistresses. He drove off all his friends long ago.”

Stump is also is constantly using nicknames as a way to dramatize and give bigger-than-life greatness to the legend. For example, some include: “old king of ball players,” “Tyrus the Terrible,” “the legendary Georgian,” “the one and only Ty Cobb.” Throughout the story, Stump makes clear that he is, in fact, afraid of Cobb and makes no subtlety about depicting him as a rage-filled loose cannon who will throw a (violent) fit if he doesn’t get his way in practically any situation. More than that though, it appears that Stump is seeking the man behind the front, the one who donates scholarships to children and sends anonymous funding to former players in need. It’s as if Stump doesn’t really like Cobb, but he would like to.

Discussion question:

I had a difficult time answering Dr. Rodgers’ question of “what is the writer’s purpose” of this story? Do you agree with my analysis, or is there something else going on here? (Even more befuddling for me is Stump’s re-writing of Cobb’s biography years later in a more negative light.)