- 04 Apr 2021 19:39
#15164785
I got to thinking about this last evening and concluded that there was enough meat here for at least a snack of comments.
Reportage is the reporting of factual data, It deals with the four basic 'W' statements. Who, what, when and where form the frame of the reporter's, er, reporting. As soon as one strays outside of that frame into, for instance, a why, the facts are no longer mere disjointed bits but are joined together into a story or explanation. That's where journalism enters, stage left [Ed.: Or, depending, stage right.] The journalist cannot help but 'color' a story. If a journalist pulled a Sergeant Joe Friday and presented 'just the facts', the journalist would be a reporter. We could dispense with 'journalist' and related nouns entirely.
The educated reader, I would think, is able to distinguish clearly between reportage and journalism. Such a reader can also detect and take a journalist's particular biases into account. That there is some huffing and puffing in some quarters about bias is, I would think, prima facie evidence of a lack of education.
Regards, stay safe 'n well. [Ed.: 'N well-informed.]
Reportage is the reporting of factual data, It deals with the four basic 'W' statements. Who, what, when and where form the frame of the reporter's, er, reporting. As soon as one strays outside of that frame into, for instance, a why, the facts are no longer mere disjointed bits but are joined together into a story or explanation. That's where journalism enters, stage left [Ed.: Or, depending, stage right.] The journalist cannot help but 'color' a story. If a journalist pulled a Sergeant Joe Friday and presented 'just the facts', the journalist would be a reporter. We could dispense with 'journalist' and related nouns entirely.
The educated reader, I would think, is able to distinguish clearly between reportage and journalism. Such a reader can also detect and take a journalist's particular biases into account. That there is some huffing and puffing in some quarters about bias is, I would think, prima facie evidence of a lack of education.
Regards, stay safe 'n well. [Ed.: 'N well-informed.]
"And gladly wolde he lerne, and gladly teche." Geoffrey Chaucer