ABSTRACT

Although the new journalism is still an infant, many of its components are under siege, especially the new nonfiction. By writing about the new nonfiction as though it were the be-all and endall of new journalism, Tom Wolfe has contributed much to the making of a new confusion. In this respect, Wolfe is a new nonfiction purist who is unwilling to include the entire continuum of related journalistic-literary developments into the definition of the new journalism. The styles and media of the new journalism have opened avenues of expression to many who previously found no access to the mass media. For this reason it may be that the main contribution of the new journalism is in reducing the sense of powerlessness of those who speak through its conduits: writers who might have strangled on the rigidity of the old newswriting formula; others who wanted to speak their mind. Diversity in journalism pivots on diversity in interest among the American people.