Thomas Schmidt analyzes the expansion of narrative journalism and the corresponding institutional changes in the American newspaper industry in the last quarter of the twentieth century. In doing so, he offers the first institutionally situated history of narrative journalism's evolution from the New Journalism of the 1960s to long-form literary journalism in the 1990s.
Based on the analysis of primary sources, industry publications, and oral history interviews, this study traces how narrative techniques developed and spread through newsrooms, propelled by institutional initiatives and a growing network of practitioners, proponents, and writing coaches who mainstreamed the use of storytelling. By showing how the narrative form of journalism was embraced, resisted, and negotiated by various actors in American journalism, Schmidt sheds light on the interaction between journalism and social forces in the late twentieth century.
