[SIGCIS-Members] historians and journalists

Dave Walden dave.walden.family at gmail.com
Tue Oct 7 11:15:26 PDT 2014


I think it may be important to distinguish the 
"journalist"-historians who write books (e.g., Isaacson, Kidder) from 
the periodical-journalists who write for monthly, weekly, or daily 
publications. My impression is that the former do years of reading 
and interviewing of participants (Isaacson in one of the podcasts 
said he had been collecting material for many years) and the result 
(while maybe somewhat misguided) is mainly their interpretation (or 
at least good story); and the latter have a tendency to use less 
primary sources, interview people who have done research rather than 
participants, etc., with much more control exerted by editors (as 
Nathan said).  See Kidder's book _Good Prose: The Art of 
Non-fictioni_ co-authored by his decades-long editor.






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