Bon Journo
on truth and gold
Truth, like gold, is to be obtained not by its growth, but by washing away from it all that is not gold.
-Leo Tolstoy
True journalism is the art of note taking, not taking note.
“The art of journalism” is a euphemism, like the “art of politics.” In each case, there’s an “art of,” but there’s no “art in.”
True journalists aim for the truth. Once they get there, there’s little room to roam around it. Journalism and Creative Writing are 100% separate disciplines. Reporting is a scientific method, not a line drawing.
Drawing is a form of commentary, not journalism. Courtroom sketches are POV not CCTV.
Photographs can be both journalism and art, but with newspaper photography, interpretation is subordinate to documentation. Constrained by contextual attachment to a story, a news photo functions as a frame to keep abstraction at bay.
That said, especially viewed out of context, news photos become stills from unmade films. Accidental, unintended art. Fractals.