One of the regular callers to our office recently asked some interesting questions about the use of the first person singular in the pages of The Hindu . He wanted to know whether the use of ‘I’ enhanced a report or reflected the ego of the writer. What happens to objectivity in this era where first person singular reportage and opinion pieces are published more frequently in the newspaper? How do newspapers distinguish themselves from various diarists and bloggers who use first person narratives? What is the line that divides the objective reporting of journalism from subjective ideas and opinions? Are there norms that govern the use of the single letter word?
In journalism, as in life, there are no neat binary answers. There are broad principles and codes but also a huge canvas to explore a range of issues using a variety of narrative techniques. The binding editorial code is not a limiting exercise. It enables one to creatively look at the complex world and come up with either convincing answers or probing questions. While no journalistic narrative can compromise on truth telling, independence and minimising harm, there cannot be rigid rules about how writers should craft their narratives.
There is another layer of complexity when the person who has been asked these questions is a practitioner of the very form of the narrative. I have used first person singular more often than some of the columnists referred to by the caller. The fact that a writer chooses a particular topic or a newspaper decides to explore a particular issue may be a manifestation of individual concerns. Editorial judgement is based not on whether an issue is of individual concern but on its universal significance. If someone’s particular concern can resonate with a larger reading universe, it cannot be dismissed as someone’s personal ego trip.
Third person can also tripHow objective are third person narratives? Is it not possible to insert the bias of the writer or the sub-editor into a copy that is in third person? Is it possible for any form of writing to be fully free from the worldview of the writer or the person who is processing the copy? In the obituary of its foreign editor for a quarter century, Brian Beedham, The Economist recorded how with deft handling, he converted pieces to say something quite different from what had been intended: “a statement of fact might be qualified by “it is said” or the American invasion of Cambodia would become a “counter-attack”. “These intrusions,” the magazine said, “could be difficult to square with The Economist ’s tradition of open-mindedness: especially as Brian’s own mind was more contradictory than it seemed.”
A newspaper should have the breadth to encompass a range of narratives to capture and succinctly present the complex world in a simple fashion without becoming simplistic. In this context, the first person singular helps in three crucial ways. The writer takes the responsibility for what is written and does not shift it to the organisation to which one belongs. It becomes eyewitness documentation in the case of reporters who file their narrative stories from sites of humongous human tragedy.
Exception, not a ruleTo borrow an idea from novelist Iain Banks, the first person narrative in a newspaper is like the Miscellaneous section in a filing system. In his novel, The Steep Approach to Garbadale , Banks wrote: “It is not a failure to have some things that can’t be filed in exactly the right file, it’s just acknowledging something about how things work in the real world. That’s what Miscellaneous is for and the alternative isn’t more accuracy, it’s less, because you end up overstretching definitions or creating [a] fresh file for every single thing, each unit, and that’s not filing, that’s naming. Miscellaneous is the definition that makes sense of all the others.” In newspapers, the first person narrative works as long as it remains miscellaneous. It should be an exception rather than a rule.
Martha Nichols, writing about first person journalism, came up with some rules of thumb: “Make sure the story is about more than you. Determine which parts of the story relate to you — and which don’t. Use meaningful personal anecdotes, stories from your life that illuminate the larger subject. Ask questions and anticipate the reader’s questions; don’t play expert. Verify everything; don’t trust your memory or a single source’s opinion of an event. Attribute information, where appropriate, to sources. Include counterpoints to your argument.”
The best answer comes from Jonah Weiner. In his article in Slate — “I love myself” — he wrote: “Too much me in a piece of journalism can be noxious, … But even if success varies from piece to piece, there is an important sense in which first-person narration can explicitly mark the attempt of marginalized voices to assert their right to narrate — it can represent a means, in this light, for outsiders to butt their way into a conversation that has excluded them, and to declare, ‘My story matters, too. Listen to me’.”
readerseditor@thehindu.co.in
