What Scoop! is all about...

For a little while now I have been collecting references to journalists in fiction.

There are many novels which feature journalists as central characters, from Scoop! and Towards the End of the Morning to Martyn Bedford's Exit Orange and Red and Ian McEwan's Amsterdam, but this blog is just as interested in fiction where journalists appear as incidentals - to move forward the plot by unearthing key details, as part of a commentary on our (invariably troubled) times, or, one suspects, to reflect the personal grudges and bitter experience of the author.

Perhaps other people read different books than I do but the picture of the profession that emerges is not particularly edifying, not least when seen through the eyes of authors who are or have been journalists themselves.

No doubt they are out there, but I have found it hard to find many heroic, happy and fulfilled fictional journalists. They are almost always drunk, miserable, misanthropic or desperate for a career change. The best of them are misguided; most are ethical derelicts whose only concern is the next headline.

And when they find the headlines it is almost always inept. Very few novelists seem to grasp the essentials of a newspaper headline, not least that it needs to be short, sharp and informative. There is an essay to be written about fictional headlines that would have to be set in 12pt to fit a tabloid or convoluted intros that would never make even the dullest local weekly.

Other categories might range from journalists in crime fiction (they almost always get in the way) to representations of women (juggling a job and family is tough) to lists of fictional newspaper titles and portraits of proprietors (an even lowlier species than journalists).

Suggestions, comments and contributions welcome...

Comments

[kimbofo]

I've been reading your blog for awhile - and quite enjoy it, given I am a journalist who reads a lot of fiction.

I've also got you linked to my book blog.

I suggest you branch out into non-British fiction - for instance, "My Brother Jack" by George Johnston (an old Australian classic), "The Shipping News" by E Annie Proulx and Michael Collins "The Keepers of Truth". And these are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head!

[Philip Young]

Thanks! For a number of reasons I made a conscious decision to limit the scope of Scoop! to Europe (initially, at least). I would be very happy to post any quotes, characters or - perhaps most usefully for my purposes - themes, that might occur to you. Future topics will include the working environment, women and the glass ceiling, what reporters wear, proprietors etc...

Thanks too for the links - I will be adding a list of Scoopers soon.