Immersion journalism, long-form journalism, literary journalism, investigative journalism, narrative nonfiction: all this was once the open rangeland known simply as “reporting.” No matter what other name you gin up for the work, it has always been the case that the best way to tell a story is to get as close to it as possible and learn as much about it as you can. Whether the result is short or long, shallow or deep, bare-bones or brimming with scenes has nothing to do with how you characterize the process of writing it, and everything to do with familiar constraints: the outlet, the editor, the budget, the nature of the story, the proclivities and abilities of the author.
Note that “gin up.” Schulz thinks “immersion journalism” is just a fancy name for what all good reporters do – get as close to the story as possible and learn as much about it as you can. But she’s wrong. There’s an important element she leaves out: subjectivity. There are certain journalists – John McPhee, Ian Frazier, Nick Paumgarten are three that quickly come to mind – whom I read primarily for the encounter between their sensibility and the world. These writers put themselves inside the frame with their subjects. They write in the first person major. They aren’t egotists. They don’t get in the way of their stories. But they are there, with their subjects; their writing is immersive, whether Schulz likes it or not.
I have another quibble with Schulz’s piece – its lack of quotation from the book (Ted Conover’s Cheap Land Colorado) she’s reviewing. Schulz seems so in love with her own voice and the look of her own prose that she can’t pause even for ten seconds to give the reader a sample of Conover’s writing. She says it’s “consistently interesting to read.” Okay, show me.
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Very well put, John! It is the difference that I perceive, for example, between, on the one hand, Rachel Aviv, and, on the other, McPhee. Aviv is an excellent reporter; McPhee is an excellent writer.
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