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.