Don't just do it

So how to use the first person singular in print? An article (in Danish) is now online in which I basically recommend that reporters introduce their personae at rare intervals - and then with explicit reluctance: Open the story first, set the stage and let events unfold until they call upon you as a responsible reporter to step in and publicly make up your mind about the material and the way you're framing it.

Two examples are presented: Åsne Seierstad at a book fair in Kabul in 2003, and Rome correspondent Lisbeth Davidsen in Tuscany with a grave robber in 2007. In Seierstad's case she's walking along and talking to book sellers when someone suddenly hands her an illegal book, stuffing it into her bag and thus compromising any wish on Seierstad's part to report on the events as if she were a fly on the city wall. A similar thing happens to Lisbeth Davidsen who is reporting for Politiken from a field trip with a guy who robs Etruscan graves for a living. Davidsen reports closely, but she doesn't use her personal pronoun until 'Luigi' hands her a wild asparagus which she accepts to chew on as an alibi for their suspicious walks in the area (should anyone ask, asparagus is what we're after).

So -- in both narratives the stage is set and other characters are introduced before the reporter directs our attention to her own person. The two reporters seem reluctant to take up space in their scenarios, so they wait for the situation to become critical, and then they say

1. first we (social dynamics are dictating my behaviour!),
2. then me (hey, somebody else is turning me into an accomplice!) and then
3. finally I (o.k., well, I did in fact consent to take part in this adventure myself).

It builds sympathy in a manner which gives priority to the actual news story. More importantly, the strategy implies that reporters should always be ready to reflect openly about their rhetorical choices, if the situation demands it. Fine. But still I can't help wondering what I'm doing recommending to reporters that they present themselves as victims of circumstance.

Reporters in Hiding, American Style

In his new book on narrative journalism Jo Bech-Karlsen celebrates (in Norwegian) the Nordic tradition of reporters exposing themselves in their writing (if not necessarily by introducing the "I"). And he questions the strong American influence which now makes reporters in the Nordic countries go into hiding in their texts and produce gripping stories which read like fiction.

The stories may be gripping, Bech-Karlsen says, and sometimes they just want to be, but come out like parodies. Much more importantly, though, the new narrative style tends to cover up the research process, to blur all the specifics concerning sources and other factors which helped the reporter shape her story. Readers may get a reading experience that they wouldn't otherwise have had at all, but the text doesn't allow these readers to estimate the relative value of various pieces of information on their own or try to judge whether or not any given conclusion or rhetorical move on the reporter's part seems justified. And a piece of journalism is supposed to allow that, argues Bech-Karlsen.

I'm convinced. I always liked Bech-Karlsen's definition (from his Reportasjen) of reportage as not just a piece of journalism based on the reporter's firsthand experience, but firsthand experience which is actually exposed in the text.

Reportage can give readers a sense of information and experience being processed. Reportage can give them occasion to ponder the tricky relationships between reality and rhetoric. And, yes, I do think that making use of the first person singular can help a reporter accomplish just that.

The Mountain in Labour

Attach file, alright then, and off it went - much later than originally promised. Writing can be ridiculously hard sometimes.

A Mountain was once greatly agitated. Loud groans and noises were heard, and crowds of people came from all parts to see what was the matter. While they were assembled in anxious expectation of some terrible calamity, out came a mouse.