Adding poetry to the news

 Posted by on 14 June 2009  Modern Life
Jun 142009
 

Seems like I’ve got a journalism theme going on here. Well, I won’t fight it. Here’s something I ran across the other day: A respected Hebrew-language newspaper in Israel decided to get other writers, besides professional journalists, involved in writing and reporting the news of the day (for one day — as an experiment). It was a special edition that also helped to honour Israel’s annual Hebrew Book Week.

The results, although I don’t know if they would work on a day-to-day basis, I found exceedingly interesting. When you’re up to your eyeballs in the news every single day, like I am, it’s difficult to remember what a newspaper looks like to an average, casual reader. Here’s how some of what Israel’s authors and poets see the news:

Among those articles were gems like the stock market summary, by author Avri Herling. It went like this: “Everything’s okay. Everything’s like usual. Yesterday trading ended. Everything’s okay. The economists went to their homes, the laundry is drying on the lines, dinners are waiting in place… Dow Jones traded steadily and closed with 8,761 points, Nasdaq added 0.9% to a level of 1,860 points…. The guy from the shakshuka [an Israeli egg-and-tomato dish] shop raised his prices again….” The TV review by Eshkol Nevo opened with these words: “I didn’t watch TV yesterday.” And the weather report was a poem by Roni Somek, titled “Summer Sonnet.” (“Summer is the pencil/that is least sharp/in the seasons’ pencil case.”) News junkies might call this a postmodern farce, but considering that the stock market won’t be soaring anytime soon, and that “hot” is really the only weather forecast there is during Israeli summers, who’s to say these articles aren’t factual?

Not everything was fanciful, though. Some respected novelists wrote feature-style pieces that drew on their prose experience to create soaring, touching, human-interest pieces. This is something that journalists are often told to do, but rarely have the training to do.

Anyone looking for the original pieces can probably find them at the Haaretz website, but I hope you speak Hebrew! Anyway, it’s worth a visit to see how a right-to-left language website is laid out nearly in a mirror image from what I’m used to.

Grant Hamilton

  • Matt Goerzen

    What a fantastic idea. THAT will get people reading, if you hyped it a bit beforehand. Think there would be any chance we could push that through at the Sun?

  • http://www.absurdintellectual.com/ Grant Hamilton

    Short answer: no.

    Longer answer: not a chance.

  • Matt Goerzen

    What? You didn’t feel the sarcasm in my question drip like bleeding poetry? I highly doubt this kind of “out there” and interesting idea would ever be entertained in Brandon.

    • http://www.absurdintellectual.com/ Grant Hamilton

      It’s not really beyond the pale for a Brandon publication, though I despair of convincing our current owners of the merit in this idea. The real problem lies in our (lack of) arts culture.

  • Colin Corneau

    I think this is inspired.

    One minor quibble: journalists may be told to write more in-depth pieces (can’t remember the last time I heard that, though) but far from not having the training or ability to do it, they most often don’t have the time or resources. “More with less”, doncha know.

    Anyway, I think this would be a terrific idea. What a great way to pique readers’ interest, as well as involve the community and truly connect with life outside the desk-barricades.