What does the word 'reportage' remind you of? That's right - it sounds a lot like reporting! But is reportage a segment of journalism or fiction, or both? Let us look at the meaning, synonyms, conventions and examples of literary reportage to find out!
Reportage meaning
Literary reportage is a genre within creative non-fiction that presents factual real-life stories but with the storytelling techniques and stylistic conventions of fictional works. Therefore, it is a blend between journalism and fiction.
The literary journalists are marvelous observers whose meticulous attention to detail is wedded to the tools and techniques of the fiction writer. Like reporters, they are fact gatherers whose material is the real world...Like fiction writers, they are consummate storytellers who endow their stories with a narrative structure and a distinctive voice.1
Creative non-fiction: A literary genre that uses literary styles and techniques to narrate factual real-life events.
Reportage includes aspects of journalism such as eyewitness accounts of real-life events, facts, research, historical backgrounds, photojournalism, sources, quotes and interviews.
However, traditional journalism is usually objective, constrictive, straightforward distant and detached, which can make it dry and uninteresting. Hence, writers of reportage blend aspects of fiction to make reporting factual events more lively and engaging. Writers of reportage use the first-person narratives to immerse themselves in the story and do not shy away from drama, dialogue, human emotions, personal opinions, character development, vivid imagery and experimentation with plot structure and chronology. Unlike traditional journalism, they focus more on the lives of their individual subjects and how they have been affected by events rather than institutions.
The popularity of reportage came about as a part of the New Journalism movement in America in the 1960s and the 1970s. This movement advocated for pushing past the restrictive boundaries of traditional journalism. Instead, it encouraged using creative storytelling techniques used in fiction to report on real-life events and people.
The primary purpose of reportage is to elicit an emotional response from its readers. By immersing themselves in the experiences of their subjects, writers of reportage comment on the bigger picture of current affairs about culture, politics, and society.
Reportage has been described as
the creative treatment of actuality.2
Reportage synonym
The genre literary reportage has several synonyms. The most common ones are:
Literary journalismNarrative journalismImmersion journalismTypes of reportage
Literary reportage often overlaps with other forms of creative non-fiction in the sense that these types also narrate factual events using fictional storytelling techniques and devices.
Biography
While reportage often focuses on political and social situations, it pays special attention towards describing the lives, experiences and personalities of the people involved in these situations. Hence, autobiographies, biographies and group biographies have often been described as written reportage, as they also describe real-life people but with creative storytelling techniques.2
Frank Sinatra Has a Cold (1966) is a written reportage by Gay Talese (1932-present) profiling the singer Frank Sinatra (1915-1998). In the reportage, Talese interviewed everyone in and around Sinatra's life, except Sinatra, whose excuse for not coming for the interview was that he had a cold.
Fig. 1 - Frank Sinatra in 1947, the subject of Frank Sinatra Has a Cold (1966)
Travel writing describes the places the writer has visited and the experiences they have had along the way in a manner that is factual, accurate and truthful but also infiltrated by vivid imagery, personal commentary and experimentation with plot structure. Hence, it can be considered a form of literary reportage.
Personal essays are similar to autobiographies wherein the writer informs the reader of an important lesson they learnt from a real-life experience. Hence, while personal essays are factual, they represent the writer's version of the truth. This leaves room for the writer's thoughts, feelings and interpretation of the event to allow a degree of subjectivity that is often seen in written reportages.
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