Expanding Narrative Journalism: How a National Writing Movement Coalesced in the United States

• In Event: Nation, Narrative, and Histories of News

Abstract

This paper provides an institutionally-situated history of narrative journalism’s evolution in American newspapers from around 1988 to 2001. Based on archival sources, institutional reports and oral history interviews, it examines how reporters and editors mobilized rhetorical and material resources to define, articulate and practice narrative journalism in newspapers. It also demonstrates how the success of narrative journalism led to a diversification of the genre. While some newspapers associated narrative techniques with feature and lifestyle sections, others systematically implemented them in news sections. Situating the efforts of individuals within an emerging community of practice, this paper describes how conventions, conferences and workshops helped construct a common identity, fostered relationships between proponents of the genre, galvanized the imagination of young reporters, canonized theory and practice, and established narrative writing as an institutional fixture in American journalism.

Author

• Thomas R. Schmidt, U of Oregon