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Journalism vs. Literature

Imagine that you've just witnessed the best music concert ever. On the drive home you can still imagine yourself in your seat, watching as the musicians put on a great show.
You run into your friends the next day. How will you describe what you experienced? Will you give them "just the facts," or will you weave a wonderful tale, full of suspense and good humor that all audiences love?

Either way, you're writing journalism. Our text tells us that journalism is bringing the news of the day to an audience (Chapter 1). You're certainly doing that with either of these two forms of storytelling. One is straight-up journalism and the other is literary journalism, also known as creative nonfiction.

So what's the difference between journalism and literature?
Barbara Lounsberry, a literary critic who wrote The Art of Fact suggests that journalism, and more specifically literary journalism, has four characteristics:
1. It contains "documentable information taken from the real world instead of 'invented' from the writer's mind.
2. It contains exhaustive research, backed up by references in the text.
3. It contains "The scene". She stresses the importance of describing and reviving the context of events instead of the typical journalistic style of objective reporting.
4. It contains "Fine writing: a literary prose style."

Your Assignment:

First: If you need a refresher on the difference between journalism and English writing, view the powerpoint again. You can find it on the CHS Homework Board on the BBS.

Second: Choose something that happened to you in the past week and write a three- or more-paragraph story in which you "cover" it as a journalist. (A paragraph in journalism is short, generally two, sometimes three sentences long.) Write your story in the third person, as if you were writing about someone else.

Be sure to include direct quotes, and attribution for all new information.

Use what you learned in the Powerpoint. Write the story as an outside observer.

Now try to write about the same event in a brief work of literature (about the same length). Remember, strictly literary writing doesn't use attribution, doesn't worry about telling us who provided new information. But it uses plenty of description, painting pictures for the reader to see in their minds as they read.

When you finish writing both stories:

ANSWER THESE TWO QUESTIONS: How are the two pieces of writing different? How are they similar?

When writing your two pieces and when answering the questions, use what you learned in the reading above and in the Powerpoint.

Your work should be submitted on a Word document that is named your Last Name-JournLit. (Example: Mulshine-JournLit)
It should be e-mailed to me on the BBS. The subject line of the e-mail should be JournLit.

DEADLINE: Monday, Sept. 12.

Your Word doc should contain your journalistic story, your literary story and the answers to the questions. Thoughtful, comprehensive stories and answers receive the A.

Visit this site to see some of the best page layouts in the newspaper industry, and in student publications, today. You can see them by clicking here. It's the NewsPageDesigner web site.

Take a look at this list of words: could you identify these items on a newspaper, magazine page or Web site?

Jargon - the inside vocabulary of a particular group.

Jumpline - the words at the bottom of a front-page story that tell the reader where to find the rest of the story.

Headline - the title of a news story.

Graf - a paragraph.

Dateline - the name of the town where the story occurred. It appears at the start of the story. Some stories don't have a dateline because the reporter was not present where the news occurred.

Byline - the author's name at the top of the story.

Cutline - a caption under a story. In magazines, it's called a caption.

Folio - on each page of a newspaper, it's the name of the paper, the date and the page number. It must appear on every page.

Legal ads - these are classified ads that are placed by the government. They advertise bids, tell readers the dates of government meetings, advertise sheriff's sales of property.

Classifieds - tiny ads, written in agate, where individuals seek things, sell things, etc.

Sig - the photo and name of a columnist that appears on the column. News stories don't have sigs, but opinion columns do.

Masthead - the box on the editorial page that lists the top editors of the newspaper and what they do. It also includes some policy statements, like how to send a letter to the editor.

Slug - a one-word title for a news story. It enables the editors to find the story in the system. It is later replaced by the headline.

Flag - the name of the newspaper at the top of Page 1.

Subhead - a mini-headline that appears under the main headline and helps explain another aspect of the story.

Jump - the part of the story that appears on another page. "I saw that quote on the jump."

Art - anything on a news page that isn't words or headlines. These include photos, infographics and other images.

Deck - a section of headline. You might have one deck that's three lines long, followed by another deck that's two lines. Also known as a headline and a subhead.

Reefer - not a marijuana cigarette. It's a little notice on the front page that "refers" the reader to a related story inside the paper to the one they are reading on Page 1.

Agate - tiny type that's found in the classified ads and in the sports scores, among other places.

News Briefs - tiny news stories of just a few sentences. They have their own headline, they're just quite small.

Photo credit - the line beneath each photo that tells the name of the photographer.

Promo - a fancy promotion of an inside story that appears on the front page, usually at the top of the page, above the flag. Also called skyboxes.

Broadsheet - a newspaper printed on long sheets that folds in half. It has different self-contained sections that can be taken out of the paper. Star-Ledger is an example.

Tabloid - a newspaper printed on short pages that folds like a magazine. New York Post.

Black Line - on a tabloid newspaper, it's the main headline. Tabloid newspapers are those that open like a magazine. The New York Post and New York Daily News are tabloid papers.

Editorial - an unsigned story that gives the opinion of the newspaper. It appears on the editorial page.

Column - a signed, or bylined, story that gives the opinion of one writer. It carries a sig.