Last week there was a bit of an uproar over the AP's announcement that they would be permitting a more personal style of writing in their news reporting. It's a bit of a shock because the AP is kind of old school when it comes to the who-what-when-where-why of news. Even though it was some time ago that the AP started disseminating stories with multiple ledes -- straight and more featurized -- this was new.
I don't have the same problem with it some do. Like Orwell, I think that personal, subjective writing might be the best way to preserve "the moral atmosphere of a particular moment in time," an argument that he makes in a wonderful essay called "Looking Back on the Spanish War."
Nevertheless, I think that the weird hybrid between news and personal writing that we're seeing now is just peculiar, and is evident in a recent NY Times story about Obama abroad.
For the first few graphs of this story, it's a relatively fact-based featurized overview of Obama's trip and McCain's non-trip of the last week. Then we get this assessment of how Obama handles himself:
Mr. Obama looks supremely confident and at home talking to generals and heads of state, so much so that some viewers may find the pose presumptuous — as if Mr. Obama believes that not only is his official nomination at the Democratic convention in August a mere formality, so is the November election.
Supremely confident? (According to who?) Some viewers? (Who exactly?) May find presumptuous? (How do you know?) And they'll conclude both that he took the nomination and the November election for granted? (That's putting a lot of words in a hypothetical person's mouth.)
The problem here is that the personal writing isn't being used to create the atmosphere of a moment so that we can make up our own minds about it -- it's being used to avoid the description of a moment and to tell us what we might have thought had we been there.
It's the weird hybrid of news writing and personal writing that is to blame.
The story describes the anchors tagging along on the trip, and then we get this:
When posing for an official photograph with a foreign leader, Mr. Obama often places his hand paternally on the other man’s arm, subliminally signaling that though a visitor, he is the real host of the meeting.
Touring ruins of the Citadel in Amman, Mr. Obama strode confidently with his jacket crooked over his shoulder in classic Kennedy style. He also practiced statesmanly restraint, telling reporters in Amman that he wouldn’t criticize his opponent while abroad.
This is not a story in which the reporter has introduced herself as a character. If she had, we might be able to appreciate some of this as judgment from a passionate sensibility. But as is, it reads as "news." The arm pat must actually be paternal, and Obama must think of himself as a host. I won't go into the fact that if it really was subliminal the reporter wouldn't actually be aware of it.
The second paragraph I won't criticize because I agree with it -- but obviously the reporter is balancing out the last paragraph's criticism with this paragraph's flattering description. Two wrongs, it seems, make a right.
Again, I don't think I'd bristle at these moments if the reporter had simply announced her point of view -- and celebrated it, instead of disguising it.
These are important moments to note -- as is the latest announcement from the AP -- in light of the recently released biopic on the life of Hunter S. Thompson, Gonzo. Thompson arguably pioneered an extremely personal form of writing in the context of presidential elections -- though of course he did so under the guise of satire, which has also been rearing its head in this election cycle.
But Thompson isn't the model to consider. Orwell is. It's possible to be subjective and still pursue truth. If we embraced that more fully, instead of retreating to the boring old who-what-when-where-why, we might avoid the ridiculousness of an attempt to find a sweet spot between the two.