Lede in Esquire: Pushing the bounds of "nonfiction"?

I wouldn't interpret that as Esquire burying the story. In most issues, a long feature like that is toward the back. You gotta have the cover story up toward the front, hence corbet. And the tunnel story kind of went with the "How Does It Feel" section.
I mean, Gary Smith stories in SI are always the last feature.
Plus, the story is teased on the cover so they weren't exactly burying it.
I'd love to hear from the writer on the lede though

 

was talking about this with a couple other scribes, and we came to the conclusion that what really put this over the edge - and i think pulitzer wannabee addressed this a couple pages ago - was that everything but the lead was painstakingly documented and attributed, so the piece reads a certain way, but the lede wasn't crafted that way. that's the problem here. it just doesn't fit. you have 98 percent of the story put together where every detail is supported and attributed and a conjured, fictional lede. the mixing and matching styles is where the piece fails.

good solid debate

 

I'm fairly stunned to see two posters I really respect and generally agree with - SF_Express and Buck - defending this as journalism.

It was a mistake. A plain and simple mistake.

I understand the motivation behind it. A part of me really feels for the writer.

But it's not something you can do and still call the piece journalism, no matter where it's published.

 

I don't understand how several editors can vet this and still let the lede make the magazine. I found it incredibly distracting. I kept waiting for some explanation for how he had those details - perhaps a laptop camera? But he destroyed his hard drive, etc. So far as I can tell, no such evidence exists.

As someone who has done plenty of narrative journalism - hell, I have a 65-incher in the paper today - I find the lede unacceptable.

 

Where's the basis for argument? If the writer wasn't there, it's FICTION, and you're imagineering things without couching it with "...the shooter likely cradled the shotgun...", etc.

I, too, stopped reading after the lede. Read like the writer was trying to pitch the story as a movie right then and there.

Reminded me of the scorned Kennedy book as well as Golenbock's Mantle book proposal that imagineered Mickey's sex with Marilyn Monroe, which was roundly lambasted as a disgrace to the craft, and humanity.

 

I found the lede jarring but not enough for me to stop reading.

But I've got a question because maybe I'm missing something.

Isn't this just another example of what Esquire's been publishing for over 4o years i.e, New Journalism?

 

I think most people here have convinced me that the lede's issues are more serious than I thought, but I would ask that same question. I would think that Esquire's regular readers know what to expect, and are familiar with it's brand of journalism.

But yeah, I do think it went too far.

 

Then do the WHOLE STORY in "new journalism," whatever in the fuck that means. Do not tirelessly justify everything else in the story and taking a flying leap on the lede.

 

Well, that's been one of my main points all along. Who cares what it's called? Nobody at Esquire, to my knowledge, has labeled it "this edition's journalism."

 

Well, how about this then: You can't call it non-fiction.

But all-in-all, I think we're being a bit silly here with semantics. The piece was clearly intended as a work of journalism, but the writer broke one of the cardinal rules of journalism, hence the disappointment.

 

Well, disappointing for some, anyway.

Ah, I love you lugs, and I truly do appreciate the passion and commitment to what we're about that leads many of you to so vehemently disagree with me about this -- some not even allowing me the possible existence of a gray area.

So, to sum up my main point(s): This is a narrative that, after the lead, is meticulously researched and completely (to our knowledge) accurate.

Some have said, "Well, if they put some kind of disclaimer on there ("Here's one way it might have happened in the hotel room before the rampage:"), then all would have been forgiven." (Or, worse, to me, pepper the lead with all sorts of "likely" and "might have" and such).

My bottom line argument is that from a reasonable reader's standpoint, this is accomplished by the fact that no thinking person would ever assume/believe that it happened exactly as described, because we know the writer wasn't there.

Some have also said that because the story is about something so serious, that the "made-up" details are even more egregious than, say, the Albom deal. But all we can really hang our hat on there are things like his checking his tattoo, or checking each clip three times.

For me, the strongly implied disclaimer is in fact in the minor details that led PW to start this thread in the first place.

A lot of people I also really respect don't agree.

Fair enough.

 

I vehemently disagree with this part. Because I'm a trained journalist and I read it and thought I must have been missing something. As in, "How did he know this???" That's why I started the thread. I thought perhaps that he had some way of having these details that I didn't get. In fact, when I got to the part in the story when it got back around to the beginning action, I was waiting for the, "... all of it captured on his laptop camera." It never came, and I would consider myself a reasonable reader.

There's no "gray area." You don't make shit up. Not in 2008. I don't care what Tom Wolfe and Truman Capote or Hunter S. Thompson did way back when. I don't care about the weird 40 years vs. 400 years of evolution that Buck tried to outsmart me about.

There's no gray area. You don't make shit up. The. End.