New Journalism



New Journalism &

Your PR Campaign


When it comes to working with the media it’s always a good idea to stay informed about how the news media evolves in response to its environment. Hyperlocal and aggregate news sites are the focus now and that shift is one of many in the long line of changes media has experienced.


It helps to be familiar with earlier versions of news reporting. This will add a depth to your public relations campaign efforts. Citizen journalism, media branding and storytelling and more all have their places in the history of journalism.


Perhaps one of the most dramatic shifts was ‘New Journalism’. The news landscape moved towards a more personal narrative reporting style that provided readers with context. This is turn created a framework that they could personally relate to.


New Journalism represents a new style of reporting that was in the 1960s and ‘70s. It employed literary techniques that emphasized ‘truth’ over ‘fact’ and provided opportunities for intensive reporting by reporters able to immerse themselves in the flavor of the stories they covered.


The basic difference between new journalism and conventional journalism is that in the latter the journalist reports the exact information whereas in new journalism the reporter reports the actual scene. Many of these stories appeared in magazines rather than newspapers and, in time, became the basis of many non-fiction books. According to John Hohenberg, the author of The Professional Journalist, after World War II, this style of news reporting became more interpretive. As a result it provided information that taught, measured and evaluated.

New Journalism Examples:

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote is one of the best examples of non-fiction genre of journalism. This 1965 best seller is about the murder of a farm family in Kansas.

Tom Wolfe’s  The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine – Flake Streamline Baby is a collection of magazine essays that are considered to be a classic exploration of the 1960’s (hot rods, guitars, social status shifts, and more).

In both cases, the reporting was also considered to be creative in that they used literary skills to create the backdrop.



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