At these “writers’” conferences it’s almost always all about the reporting. This is important.
Today at the National Writers’ Workshop here in hot, breezy South Florida, it came up a good bit.
Mirta Ojito, formerly of the Miami Herald, formerly of the New York Times, currently teaching at Columbia, gave the morning keynote on using “I” to tell stories. She said it was not only as important but MORE important to report the hell out off personal narratives, memoirs, things like that, because people are going to doubt those sorts of stories.
“I reported my own experiences,” she said.
She didn’t just say it was hot coming over from Cuba. She didn’t just say the waves were high and scary. She checked the Herald way-back microfiche for the weather that day.
Ken Wells from the Wall Street Journal dropped a word I’d never heard. A good one. He calls writing without reporting “flash dancing.”
“It’s the reporting, stupid,” he said. Then: “The penalty for flash-dancing at the Wall Street Journal is death.” You get fired.
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