Tom Wolfe- The New Journalism

Tom Wolfe’s famous book, The New Journalism, is a manifesto for a new type of journalism that highly differs to the old style of journalistic writings.

The age of literary movement changed Journalism from being a boring form of telling the story from scientific facts point of view to telling naturalistic, actual stories of what was being seen at the scene. Psychology had a high impact on Journalism as objectivity was no longer welcome; instead talking about an authentic experience was more wanted. People wanted to read true and honest articles. Tom Wolfe portrays how journalism has growth from old forms of writings that included unexciting facts to the new, modern journalism.

Tom Wolfe in his book presents how he wanted Journalism to become more than just reporting on current affairs. He wanted literature to help describe how the society develops in current years. The first part of the book shows how features changed Journalism from being about boring, factual news to being a way up to write a novel. He described features as stories that fall outside the category of hard news.

Reporters instead of worrying that they need to find a news story and instead of chasing the big news stories, and reporting on tragedies, focused on writing their own pieces of features that were then published in magazines such as New Yorker. Tom Wolfe however thought that joining journalism with literary devices together could make the best way of reporting on current affairs in America. People would be more interested in reading about their country in a form of a feature story, sort of like a novel- because everyone enjoys reading novels, instead of trying to work out the experimental and complicated old journalistic language. This was because Tom Wolfe felt like American novels were moving away from realism, he wanted to bring it back, as once again according to psychological concerns, people wanted truth and honesty. Wolfe thought that the only way to bring realism back to life is by mixing literary devices with journalism.


The main changes in Journalism show 4 devices that Tom Wolfe identified, which were taken from novels:

1. Scene by scene construction- It is essential for the journalists to be at the scene to see what exactly happened as this is the only way they can be honest and truthful.

2. Fully recorded dialogue- It is important to have the whole speech, as well as explaining to the audience who the interviewee is. It gives colour to the story.

3. 3rd person point of view- Not use ‘I’, explaining in 3rd person everything that is happening, everything that other people are doing, explaining what the reporter is seeing in 3rd person, as if the reporter was a character of the story too.

4. Adding details to every day’s life- concentrating on little details. Describing the weather, the way people dress, the way they express themselves.

Existentialism. The Outsider by Albert Camus

Philosophical existentialism had a form of several variations- Next to religious existentialism that had a strong affect on Christian philosophy, atheistic existentialism also took place. The biggest influences on the intellectual atmosphere of the first decade after World War II were literary and philosophical works of Camus. He was the representative of atheistic existentialism, who puts the spotlight on the problem of human existence in the world, settled in the perspective of self-awareness fighting for their authenticity.
Atheistic existentialism examines the "road of freedom" in a world that is meaningless. If a man wants to be himself, responsible and decisive about himself, he must constantly make choices, and be still oriented towards the future, which according to the atheistic existentialists doesn’t exist, therefore they would be orientated towards the nothingness.

The book tells the story of Mersalut, who lives his life in a different way to everyone else. I found that the whole story is just a psychological analysis of a new sort of hero, who lacks any emotions and purpose of life. The story starts when his mum dies. Afterwards, the time scale disappears and the time is no longer important. It almost feels like the time doesn’t exist and everything that is happening is just a thought process. He mechanically experiences all that is happening around him, stigmatized by a lack of emotion associated with the death of his mother, which is against the society expectations that required a certain reaction after her death. The only emotion he could focus on during the funeral was the heat.

The writing is very descriptive and simple, he details everything he sees or does. The example of the lacking time scale is when he talks about his mother’s death ‘My mum died today, or maybe it was yesterday. I don’t know’. He doesn’t have any sense of grief after receiving the telegram. Soon after her funeral, Mersalut meets Marrie- his friend, who he is physically attracted to. They sleep together and then the next thing you read about it them getting married. His is very emotionless about it. Marrie asks him ‘Do you love me? Do you want to marry him?’ To which he replies ‘if you want’ as if she asked him to go out for a walk. It meant nothing to him. He didn’t think about the consequences of their marriage, he didn’t think of the future. It all happens so quickly that the reader can’t be sure how long it has been since the previous even happened.

Mersalut focuses on the physical world, because it gives him pleasure, because it doesn’t complicate his life. He is crazily indifferent about marrying Marrie, but he doesn’t mind sleeping with her. He’s always liked the way she looks, he likes her body and mostly he likes her smile. Because it’s natural... naturally. However, he never fancies listening what she has to say. That’s because speaking is not a natural skill, this is something we learn throughout our life time experience and he doesn’t approve it.

I thought the main theme of the book is sense of detachment. Mersalut is completely detached from life. The main point:
1. His body was there at his mum’s funeral but his mind was elsewhere. He was focusing on the heat rather than the ceremony.
2. He had no emotions after his mother died. He never mentioned any feeling- nothing changed in his life.
3. He simply forgets about Marrie and everything else when he is in jail.
4. He didn’t realise he killed the Arab till the police started questioning him. That’s when he realised that he killed a human being, even that didn’t make him care.

The character changes his attitude towards life at the end of the book. He find meaning in life and learns to appreciate it after his is completely over. He shows his emotions before the execution. He shakes and screams ‘ I am ready to start life all over again’