HCJ- The New Journalism

Tom Wolfe makes creating a features so simple with his 4 points. Before reading this book I didn't really have an interest in writing or making features, however I think that after discussing it in the lecture and seminar and after reading this book, it is so simple and can be really effective. After recently watching a documentary called The 4 year plan showing behind the scenes I could see how effective Wolfe's points are and how they make such a good feature.

These points are not for hard news and would not make a good news piece such as what we do in WINOL, instead they would be features, still interesting but less factual pieces. The creation of new journalism allowed news to be seen rather than the old formulaic news which is pure facts and therefore tells the audience what to think rather than showing them. Features and new journalism are meant to be more entertaining, emotive and let the audience make their own minds up. New Journalism is more entertaining, and is objective, so that is does not have political bias and appeals to a bigger audience.

The points are.

1. Write about a scene followed by another scene this scene by scene construction would not been seen in hard news and does not have the historical narrative of hard news and therefore is more entertaining than hard news. It does not have to start at the beginning of a journey and could start with a phone call or part of an event.

2.Realistic dialogue; there needs to be lots of this, it defines a character quickly. The dialogue can be recorded and exact conversations add to the piece.

3.Get inside the persons mind. 3rd person point of view. Emotions. Ask the interviewee how they feel, ask emotive questions ask for feelings. Research is needed for this point.

4. Finally you need to record every day things, gestures, habits, manner, customs, styles, mode of behaviour, details, descriptions, behaviour, clothes etc. 

These are important to a new journalist like in Fear and loathing as they are what is important. The things that are usualy boring are the things that are interesting to a new journalist and their interpretation of what they find, such as the bin feature which is being carried out by WINOL. Gonzo journalism is such a wide topic it also covers performance journalism which is another effective way of engaging the audience without hard news; an example would be in sport; an Ice Hockey game would be the hard news, but the behind the scence learning how to play Ice Hockey would be the feature idea.

All in all, new journalism allows the audience to make their own minds up rather than just being given facts and nothing else. The audience can see what is shown to them and decide for themselves rather than being told something. It is subjective and the journalist is put into the action. New journalism has been linked to existentialism, with writers such as Thompson living for now while trying to find a meaning to life. Nothing is important to them and the things that they find interesting are not going to be found in hard news. Details are important instead of the main event. Therefore we do not find out the winner of the big derby in fear and loathing. Existentialist also find people and status very important and therfore they carry out a social autopsy to find out about a person.

However there are problems with new journalism such as its objectivity and credability and therefore it is not used in hard news and there is a distinct difference between the two.