RSJ News
Telling stories, making emotional connections
10-07-2009
Award-winning writer and author Isabel Wilkerson praises the power of narrative journalism in a crowded UNR auditorium.
Story by Clint Demeritt
Video by Tammy Krikorian
Early in her talk, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Isabel Wilkerson quoted Leo Tolstoy, saying art is the transfer of emotion from one person to another. Narrative writing is journalism’s highest art, Wilkerson said.
“It’s the highest expression of journalism,” Wilkerson said. “Narrative journalism is yet another layer of emotional transfer of the emotions of a source to a reader.”
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Wilkerson shared her writing experiences with students, friends and faculty gathered for the Robert Laxalt Distinguished Writer’s event Oct. 7. Her latest project is a book, “The Great Migration,” that chronicles the twentieth century migration of blacks through America. She interviewed 1,200 people for the book. She also told students how she was transformed from reporter to fervent investigator to expert seeking enlightenment.
Wilkerson won a Pulitzer Prize in feature writing for her story “First Born, Fast Grown: The Manful Life of Nicholas, 10.” The story was about a boy growing up on the south side of Chicago, practically raising his own younger siblings. The story was written in 1994 while Wilkerson was Chicago bureau chief for The New York Times. It received an outpouring of community support.
View an archive of Wilkerson's reporting here.
UNR Journalism Dean Jerry Ceppos said students should follow Wilkerson’s narrative journalistic style. Not every story is right for narrative journalism, he said, but if one gets the right author and the right story, the results are astounding.
Ceppos also pointed out the black migration from the South to the Northern United States was one of the great-untold stories of the twentieth century.
“The story of the black migration to the north was missed by virtually every journalist,” he said. “It makes you wonder what stories that are happening under our noses right now that are so big. Maybe they've been going on for decades and we’re missing them.”
Saundra Keyes, a Reynolds School professor, introduced Wilkerson in front of the almost full Joe Crowley Student Union theater. Wilkerson is a journalism professor at the College of Communication at Boston University.
Keyes recounted Wilkerson’s early college internships from the St. Petersburg Times to the Washington Post, and her post-graduation rise to The New York Times. Keyes praised her elegant narrative journalism style.
“But her stories are compelling primarily because of her smart, empathetic, in-depth reporting,” Keyes said. “The resulting detail gives her work a richly textured humanity that has impact far beyond the eloquence of her words.”
Wilkerson told students that narrative journalism is a worthy pursuit. She said journalism today not only has to be good, but better than the thousands of other things that are competing for the readers’ attention.
Wilkerson recalled a crime story involving a photographer and two models. Asking the police officers for details, she discovered a setting that included a camera, champagne and three champagne flutes. Wilkerson used those details in her lede, and won herself front-page placement in The New York Times.
