As you’ve probably figured out, this site has a “glossary” that helps define some terms that you’ll encounter in each of the Chapters; some of those terms, of course, are more technical (and more controversial) than others. But here are just a handful it might help to review as you’re just starting out with this site.  What I’ll do here is give you the “first take” about each term that is listed, in a fuller way, in the Glossary itself. For those discussions, you can click on each link in the term listed.

Narrative and Narrative Journalism

First Take: a set of events, selected and arranged in a particular order (a plot), recounted from a particular point of view. In Reading Narrative Journalism, this foundational idea of narrative, which thus combines two main structural elements—the arrangement of events from a point of view–might be thought of as the core element of what I’m calling the “story-form.”

Attribution

First take: The part of a journalistic report that identifies where the information in a story has come from. Often presented as “according to” recognized or official sources, as in “the Surgeon General reports that”; or, attribution appears in tags within interviews, as in “the Senator said.” 

Immersion

First Take: Used in two senses in journalism: to refer to the reportorial strategy of involving oneself deeply in the scene or milieu being reported on; and, especially in narrative journalism, to a style that creates this feeling of “being there” for the reader.

Subject and Subject Relations

First Take: As in a scientific experiment, in journalism the “subject” refers to the person both (1) about whom a reporter writes, and also (2) with whom they commonly formed his primary research relationship. As in, for instance, the “subject” of an interview, or a profile.

profile

First Take: In journalism generally, a standard form of feature-writing dedicated to a biographical portrait, commonly of a celebrity, a figure central to a recent development in the news, and/or someone representing a way of life.