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.