When I think of “journalism” I think, often, of important news stories, making their way through the community, informing people of things that are necessary for them to know. This can be political, or economic, or even trivial — but it’s pretty easy to define “news” in terms of importance.
That said, there’s a subset of journalism that’s much more personal, where skilled storytellers relate an interesting individual experience to a wider audience. Sometimes, this is because a single-person story can have a deep impact, and can be either useful or interesting to a lot of other people. Telling the story of someone who fell afoul of a weird tax quirk, for example, might educate others before they make the same mistake, and could even spur the authorities to change the weirdness.
But sometimes it’s just the sheer vicarious thrill of it all that makes it worth reading.
I’ve recently discovered the “Experience” archives at The Guardian. They each tell a unique tale from a single person’s perspective. They’re all pretty different, and they’re all compelling. They’re “as told to”, so they are written by professionals, but in the voice of the person who actually lived through what they’re talking about.
For a taste, try “I Used To Steal Double-Decker Buses.” Or, “I Fell 6,000 Feet And Survived.” Or even, “Someone Set My House On Fire.”
They’re all a little on the breathless side, which makes them feel, to me, a tad exploitative. But that’s a peril of the genre, which is also encapsulated in Esquire magazine’s “What it Feels Like” series or the “Drama In Real Life” tales from Reader’s Digest (man, I used to lap those up when I was about 12).
I guess it’s a reminder that good journalism can also be celebratory of individual achievement (and not just in sports) as well as entertaining.
Grant Hamilton
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