Reading Response

I was really impressed by the readings for this week. The articles we read were more than just good—they drew me in and held my attention, and I honestly felt like I learned so much this week.

Aaron Aupperlee's pieces are able to achieve some of the more complex aspects of narrative journalism, and I was excited to see this kind of work taking place in a local newspaper. The “Eyes of Chittock Avenue” reminded me of “One in Eight Million” from the New York Times. Although the audio quality of Aupperlee's audio slideshows was not amazing, I really enjoyed hearing the voices of residents and how they expressed their life on a notorious street. Comparing these two audio slideshows made me think about allowing subjects to speak for themselves and the power that an ordinary voice can convey. Aupperlee's series about heroin use was really interesting to me, but I'm not sure I am convinced that heroin is as big a deal in Jackson as the paper made it sound. The article only reported one or two deaths from heroin per year, and I know that there are other communities in Michigan that are suffering from much higher rates of heroin addiction and death. That being said, I understand how huge of a tragedy a drug related death can be in a small community and I think the piece did a great job showing how people come together when they lose someone.

I had a great time reading the last chapters of Telling True Stories, especially the chapter about ethics. I know a lot of people just want to write and worry about ethical considerations later, but ethics has always been one of the most compelling discussions that I take part in for writing classes. Nonfiction, including narrative journalism, has special moral and ethical considerations because it is supposed to work with facts. Roy Peter Clark began this section with his powerful essay, “The Line Between Fact and Fiction” which made this bold statement: “Some contemporary nonfiction authors defend invention in the name of reaching for some higher truth. Such claims are unjustifiable in any journalism” (166). I kept this line with me as I went on to read the rest of the chapter, and as I kept returning to Clark's statement, the more it rang true to me. Journalism is not just about the artistic endeavor for greater truths; it is about the use of facts to get at greater truths. It seems simple to say “thou shalt not lie in journalistic pieces,” but narrative journalism blurs the line between fact and fiction, thus it is the responsibility of the writer to hold fast to the ethics of their trade.

I found that I could not put down The Road is Very Unfair: Trucking Across Africa in the Age of AIDS. The story covered so many topics, from political unrest to poverty to sexually transmitted diseases, and even though I know a decent amount about all of those topics, I was completely blown away by Ted Conover's writing. I felt that he was remarkably successful at making himself a main character, but that his voice did not overshadow the piece and his characters still spoke for themselves. At times, I felt like I was reading a nonfiction novel, and I think The Road is Very Unfair was a great illustration of how narrative journalism can be so much more than just the news.