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Is anybody out there reading?
(REPRINTED WITH PERMISSION OF THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS)

By Jerome Weeks
July 31, 2005

Last weekend, Susan Orlean, the author of The Orchid Thief, urged literary journalists to risk their dignity for a good story: “I don’t do war reporting, but I think allowing a 10-year-old boy to shoot dog food at your butt deserves some recognition.”

Paul Hendrickson, meanwhile, was as spellbinding as a preacher. He described the long legacy of racism he uncovered for Sons of Mississippi — a book inspired by a single photo of seven sheriffs in 1962. He advised his listeners to take similar leaps of faith, to get out and do the research: “If you go, the story will happen. It’s not an immutable law of journalism, but it’s damned close.”

And my Dallas Morning News colleagues, BillMarvel and Dave Tarrant, surprised me twice in discussing the mechanics of writing narrative journalism: They were entertaining, and I actually learned something from them.

So we can count the first Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Writers Conference held by the University of North Texas a success. A sold-out crowd of more than 250 attended the talks and panels: UNT student, working reporters, would-be writers. A healthy start.

 

Cold Water
On the other hand, Norman Pearlstine, editor-in-chief of Time Inc., in his keynote address, was a bucket of cold water on the future of such nonfiction writing in magazines: “Our audience seems to be deserting us.” Worse, “long-form journalism is at odds with a lot of the demands of the marketplace.”

This doesn’t bode well for biographies, true crime books, travel memoirs and other literary journalism because the best of those books have often started as features in places such as the New Yorker or Atlantic Monthly. Plus, many book authors make their real money as magazine writers.

So while the book marketplace has been gobbling up the best-selling likes of Blink and Flyboys, magazines have been splitting themselves into ever smaller markets (soon to come: Hey, Leo!, the monthly just for Leonardo DiCaprio). Or they’ve aimed themselves at covering the same super-rich, super-famous divinities whose every stylish purchase we wish to mimic (soon to come: Leonardo DiCaprio’s Utility Bills).

As Mr. Pearlstine put it, today’s niche periodicals and
service magazines “ are about anything but
literary nonfiction.”

In response, bloggers have trumpeted themselves as the cure-all for such media woes. But the Internet itself has two huge weaknesses: So far, it doesn’t pay. And there’s little evidence we’ll read long fiction or nonfiction online.

 

Blogs vs. vlogs
In fact, Mr. Pearlstine predicted that broadband service was likely to make the Internet a video medium -- with documentary filmmakers, not nonfiction writers, the primary news producers. Two days later, The New York Times promptly ran a story about how vlogs (video logs) are replacing blogs as the hot sites online.

Not surprisingly, even as Mr. Pearlstine cited nonfiction writers he admired, he sounded more like a bottom-line businessman than a journalist. His speech seemed like a justification for cutting back more on longer features in magazines. It’s a common media strategy today: To get those desirable 18-year-olds who don’t read, we’ll give them even less to read.

I’m convinced, however, that narrative reporting will still exist someplace outside of books. Many readers will not settle for a diet of blurbs touting trendy shoes and health drinks. Mr. Pearlstine argued that such readers are now a niche market. True, but the same holds for chopper owners, and bookstore shelves sag with periodicals on those gleaming hawgs. Explanatory depth, vivid accuracy and a compelling story: They may be the closest thing nonfiction has to the perfect beast.