Journalist Literary Figures Research Articles

Journalism and the novel: truth and fiction, 1700-2000

Introduction 1. Journalism and the rise of fiction, 1700-1875: Daniel Defoe to George Eliot 2. Literary realism and the fictions of the industrialized press, 1850-1915: Mark Twain to Theodore Dreiser 3. Reporters-turned-novelists and the making of contemporary journalistic fiction, 1890-today: Rudyard Kipling to Joan Didion 4. The taint of journalistic literature and the stigma of the ink-stained wretch: Joel Chandler Harris to Dorothy Parker and beyond Epilogue: the future of journalistic fiction and the legacy of the journalist-literary figures Appendix: the major journalist-literary figures: their writings and positions in journalism.

Transcending the News: Religious Ambivalence Among the Famous Journalist-Literary Figures and Literature as the Uncertain Path to Immortality

Journalists in the work-a-day world have few opportunities to muse publicly about their religious beliefs or struggles. As a result, some of the most telling tales of journalists' feelings about religion and spirituality come from the accounts of the impressive number of British and American literary figures who began their careers as journalists but who came to express themselves most intimately in fiction. As part of a study of 189 of these well-known figures, this article focuses on how they expressed their religious and spiritual views in their journalism and their literature and how this reflected cultural attitudes that have become prominent within the journalism profession. Although many of these great journalist-literary figures are famous for their heterodox views and their antipathy for institutional religion, many continued to search for spiritual meaning in the private realm of faith and by exploring alternative and unconventional forms of spiritual practice.

Depression, Drink, and Dissipation

An examination of the lives of 187 famous journalist-literary figures shows that a high proportion of them battled substance abuse and emotional health problems. This pattern fits in with research that shows a close relationship between artistic temperament and mental health difficulties. This article discusses the connection between these behaviors and the choice of journalism and writing as a career, and it examines whether journalism attracts personalities who project unhealthy psychic tensions onto the world. The fact that so many of the journalist-literary figures found themselves imprisoned in compulsive behaviors leads one to ponder the ironies of their lives that were lived for the sake of freedom and uninhibited artistic expression but ended up miserable for themselves and those around them. And it makes one wonder whether future journalist-literary figures will follow the same path.