Jul 21st, 2009
My writing ability: Institutionalized?
J-school friend: i’d suggest giving your posts more of a personal voice. it can be a bit hoity-toity this is the future of journalism sounding
Me: ok - yes, i am trying! i realize i’m not very comfortable doing that so I really have to try. but you’re right… my friends’ blogs I like most really use a unique voice
J-school friend: professional but personal
Me: yes… it’s harder than I thought
J-school friend: like use facts, interviews, etc… for cred but don’t make it sound like a trade magazine, which it has not for the most part. i’m no good at it either
J-School friend: yeah, i have to write this weekly column where we can be more personal, i tend to just write it as another story
A few weeks ago I had this conversation with (clearly) a J-school friend who works for a newspaper in Maryland. I thought of it today while reading a blog post lamenting the proliferation - and shortcomings - of what that blogger calls the institutional voice.
Institutional voice, as I interpret it in this instance, is the voice of the all-knowing disinterested reporter. It’s the rather drone-like, systematic voice we use and increasingly try to break out of when writing news stories. And, if you’re as lucky as my J-school friend and I, it was drilled into your head (fingers?) from the time you wore braces and wrote columns about how high school administrators should permit the girls soccer team to practice in their sports bras when it’s hot outside just like the dance team girls (TOTALLY discrimination. Totally.). Later, when your braces came off and you got to college, you used the institutional voice to bang out wrestling team features and 10-inch game stories (over and over and over).
It’s hard to escape, this institutional voice. Especially when a lot of older journalism professionals (perhaps: delusionals?) tell you this is the voice in which you must write at least a million words before you even begin to develop even the most rookie-level of writing abilities.
Even trickier, it seems, is how to balance the fact-driven, authoritative institutional voice with a more creative one.
A new-to-me example of a writer who has managed to shed the institutional voice and convey useful information (albeit not the most time-sensitive information) with flair is Jack Tomas. He’s writing the snark-a-licious “Get to know your dictator” series at Guanabee.com, a Gawker-esque site dedicated to Latin American pop culture.
He manages to write cheeky Wikipedia-esque profiles, some of which feature newsy tie-ins, of Latin American dictators past and present. His columns are a great way to feed readers their “veggies” (ie, information useful for becoming an informed citizen) with such a flair they don’t realize what they’re taking in. When I read the first one, on Hugo Chavez, I didn’t even realize how much I was learning.
Apparently Hugo is “the Jonas Brothers of leftist Latino politics” who in “1999 he was elected president and immediately began consolidating power. He got advice from his new BFF, elder dictator and beard enthusiast Fidel Castro”. And if I am ever in Venezuela, I will totally check out his TV show - “He stars in his own TV show called Alo, Presidente in which he holds the airwaves captive for four hours at a time, kind of like Don Francisco does with Sabado Gigante, but with less stupid hats and dancing boxes of Tide Ultra. [Ed: Although just as many breasts--his!]”
It’s no intense narrative effort, but at least it’s not the institutional drone you (er, your grandpa) read over the breakfast table each morning.