What am I doing here?

A guide to first-person journalism

You can do it! You can tell journalistic stories in the first person appearing with a visible and active self in the story. In fact, in some situations this can elevate your journalism and engage readers, listeners and viewers. But when and why? Which stories will be better with an active self and how do you go about it?

These questions are answered in the anthology What am I doing here? Through analyses and examples, a range of journalists and scholars explore when, why and how a visible 'I' can improve a journalistic story across genres, media types and platforms.

The book presents different types of first-person narrators and the dilemmas that can arise in, amongst others:

  • feature and reportage
  • investigative reporting
  • the profile story
  • ghostwriting
  • essays and memoirs
  • audio stories
  • digital stories
  • ethnographic journalism
  • the personal photograph

What am I doing here? is a hands-on textbook designed to inspire journalists, editors and other communicators to a well-considered and qualified use of 'I'.

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  • E-bog (Vitalsource bookshelf (epub3)
    1. edition (2024), 232 pages
    ISBN: 9788759344125
    Studiepris
    205,-
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Indholdsfortegnelse

Introduction: What am I really doing here? 9
Steffen Moestrup, Jesper Gaarskjær and Gitte Luk
Introduction to the journalistic ‘I’ and an outline of the aim, content and structure of the book.

1. The first-person narrator: I take on different roles 17
Jesper Gaarskjær
An introduction to different types of first-person reporting, and how the ‘I’ can take on different roles with different effects.

2. Reportage: I bring home a piece of self-experienced reality 39
Peter Nicolai Gudme
A guide to using yourself in first-person reportage by establishing a persona and playing a role.

3. Investigative journalism: I examine the world from an honest, reliable perspective 59
Jesper Gaarskjær
An analysis of how the ‘I’ can strengthen your ethos, credibility and storytelling in investigative and feature journalism.

4. Profile stories: I change positions and make room for different personas 75
Steffen Moestrup and Christine Isager
An exploration of the scope of the profile story and how the meeting between journalist and subject unfolds and is described with different degrees of emotional intensity and for different purposes.

5. Essays and memoirs: I explore my life 97
Jesper Gaarskjær
An introduction to the essay and memoirs, analysing and discussing the methodical and ethical dilemmas associated with these genres, where the ‘I’ takes centre stage and uses her own life and recollections as the main source of the story.

6. Ghostwriting: I am an illusion created by a ghost 117
Rasmus Rønlev and Rikke Hyldgaard
The chapter dissects the work of ghostwriters who endeavour to approximate the voice of their main source and construct the ‘I’ of the other person, and discusses the ethical dilemmas involved.

7. Ethnographic journalism: I enter an unfamiliar culture 139
Anne Kirstine Hermann
An introduction to ethnographic journalism and an analysis of how the journalist can take different positions, both methodologically and as an ‘I’ in the text.

8. Audio stories: I speak in many voices 155
Rasmus Rønlev and Susanna Sommer
The chapter presents a typology of archetypal first-person narrators in journalism and shows how the various narrators may be purposefully staged in audio stories.

9. The digital ‘I’: I am the product of a stream of zeros and ones for you to click on 177
Steffen Moestrup
Through the analysis of digital narratives, the chapter explains how the digital ‘I’ can be activated, both as a source’s point of view via digital elements and as an explicit ‘I’ in the text.

10. Personal photography: I take photos of my own world 201
Gitte Luk and Søren Pagter
Based on selected personal photo projects, the tension between the postulated objective photography and the declared first- person project in photojournalism is examined.

About the authors 229

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