Journalism is about telling people’s stories, but most times I remember the journalist more than I do the stories.
The famous journalists, (I guess I’ll name my favorites) such as Tom Wolfe, Joan Didion and Charles Bowden (you can throw John Jeremiah Sullivan, Mac McClelland and Susan Orlean in there), get to have their names remembered. For their reporting, for their writing, for their enterprising nature. But, as an example, Wolfe has become bigger than his story about acid-trippers (The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test) and his tome about the space race (The Right Stuff) is really just another notch on his belt.
And that is why I have a bit of a problem with this article on Gawker that puts, oh so eloquently, that journalism is not about the journalist (me). It is about the people we cover:
The good news, young writers, is that your life does not have to be extraordinarily interesting, because there are billions of people in the world who do have interesting lives, and you have the privilege of telling their stories.
Telling those stories is a privilege, and the stories we write about the people we cover really are about them and not us. But I do think having a particular writer’s name at the top of a story can’t hurt, and will most likely help, like, a lot when it comes to getting eyeballs to a page.
Stories have a particular bent based on who writes them (Duh! I know, but stick with me). Say Tom Wolfe and I¹ are sent out to cover the same story, say a school board meeting. We’ll hand in different stories just because we’re different people and different writers.
But people would remember Wolfe’s story because of all the playful punctuation, masterful visual imagery and the way he captured what the people in attendance thought of the prattling of the board members. People would remember mine (for about a day or so, maybe) because the Blah-Blah School Board approved blah-blah by a vote of X to Y.
And that’s the point: people who have no interest in the dealings of the school board in Blah-Blah would read it because they love Wolfe’s style. They would read mine (or some other faceless reporter with no writerly flair) because they wanted to know what went down during that meeting.
This is where the “personal brand” thing comes in. Recently, Andrew Sullivan of the Daily Dish announced he was starting his own website and will charge 20 bucks a year for people to read his stuff. And (some) people will probably pay if they like the guy. In a blog post, Ann Friedman, a columnist for NYmag.com, had this to say about him:
The really modern thing about Sullivan is that he is a brand unto himself, a journalist who transcends the outlets that have employed him. There is a particular Andrew Sullivan tone, a particular Andrew Sullivan perspective on the world.
She’s arguing people will cough up the money to get his perspective, how his personal experiences shaped that perspective. A writer’s perspective does play a factor into whether I like him or her or not. But, more importantly, for me anyways, is this “tone” of which Friedman speaks. I keep coming back to certain writers because of the way, yes, they write.
Some writers are instantly recognizable (and enjoyable) because of the way they write. Tom Wolfe is instantly recognizable, so is Andrew Ben Cramer, John Jeremiah Sullivan, Charles Bowden. I follow these writers because of their own, distinct “tone” — it doesn’t matter where they are published.
On the flip side, I don’t know any writers at The New Yorker. I read it because it’s The New Yorker, not because of the writers it employs (even though those writers are very good). I’ve heard it has a house style, and that’s fine and great, but a single writer’s voice doesn’t keep me from coming back.
I think it’s cool though when I become invested in a writer. I keep coming back to him or her. For me nowadays, that writer is Tom Bissell. More than once I’ve scoured the Internet (from The Virginia Quarterly Review to Grantland to The Believer) for everything he’s written, voraciously trying to find his words until relenting and finally buying Magic Hours, a collection of his essays. I’m committed to him, and many other fans of many other writers have the same feeling.
So I read the stories about other people because of the writers, but I’m glad I do — sometimes those stories are, if not memorable, incredible.
1. OMG! Wolfe and me mentioned in the same sentence!
Behind Blue Skies 
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