Whatever Became of the New Journalism?

FAIN: FT-52874-04

John J. Pauly
St. Louis University (St. Louis, MO 63103-2097)

I am requesting an NEH Summer Stipend to help me complete two chapters of a book entitled Whatever Became of the New Journalism? My book tracks the influence of Tom Wolfe, Joan Didion, Hunter Thompson, and other nonfiction writers of the 1960s on subsequent practices of social commentary, business reporting, journalism criticism, and ethnography. It interprets the New Journalism as a social practice that responded to changes in magazine and book markets, middle-class readers’ sensibilities, and journalists’ professional values. One of the chapters I will write this summer focuses on the role of magazine venues such as Esquire, New York, and Rolling Stone. The other considers the meaning of reporters, editors, and educators’ debates over the New Journalism.