David Simon, former Baltimore Sun cops reporter and force behind the brilliant television shows Homicide and The Wire, visited the St. Petersburg Times on Friday to talk about the role of narrative journalism in prolonging the slow death of newspapers. (This one had Gangrey written all over it.) His main point seemed to be that stories — not articles, not reports, not infoboxes — will keep readers with us in the coming decades. He said people want something with depth, with nuance, with a beginning and a middle and an end, written by someone who’s become an expert in the subject, rendered through the characters’ eyes.
“You’re going to have to provide them something they can’t get by calling up AP on Google,” he said.
My favorite of his points was the one about knowing your audience. Reporters tend to imagine the average newspaper reader when they write. Forget him, he said. Forget your colleagues too.
“The guy you want to write for is the guy who’s in the middle of the event,” he said. “If he has to admit that you own his world, then you’ve succeeded.”
Here’s a sampling of his other pronouncements.
On using quotes instead of dialogue: “The thing that all journalists do, and it basically destroys narrative storytelling as an art, is they quote people.”
On how to get the kind of extraordinary access he got in writing The Corner: “You just have to show up every day and not lie.”
On projects undertaken for the sole purpose of winning awards: “Any one of you that starts thinking about what prize your shit is going to win before Dec. 15 is an asshole.”
On forcing a sense of balance instead of simply reporting what you saw: “All that journalism where you quote everyone saying, ‘On the other hand,’ — (it) eventually means nothing.”
On copy editors who want to stop and explain every new term: “Copy editors need to be beaten with a stick.”
On watchdog journalism, which he has forsaken in favor of explanatory narrative: “All I want to do is come to the campfire with the best story.”
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