Lately I’ve been thinking about how much of yourself it is appropriate to put into a piece of journalism. As an arrogant amateur at university I wrote about myself constantly, knocking out a column every issue. My ultimate ambition is to have my own column in the Charlie Brooker/Tim Dowling/Marina Hyde vain (yep, shameless Guardianista).
After being told on one of my earliest work experience to cut the froth (I’m a cappuccino of a person), I am making a concerted effort to take the word ‘I’ out of my pieces. One of my tutors is insistent that using the word ‘I’ in any piece is a crime that should be punishable by death. However, after my first writing class with doyenne of women’s magazines Marcelle D’Argy Smith, the focus was on ‘I’ as honest and confessional, the writer exposing themselves completely to the scrutiny of their reader.
I personally enjoy reading personal comment pieces that use the first person shamelessly; I like being invited into the author’s psyche. But I know others find them self-indulgent and self-obsessed.
What I do object to is when interviewers focus more on themselves than their subject. When Debra Ross, a writer I normally like, interviewed Anne Marie Duff a couple of years ago, she spent most of the article detailing her huge crush of Duff’s husband (the admittedly lovely) James McAvoy. It was all a bit embarrassing. However, I do think that the occasional ‘I’ and comment on how the interviewee interacts with the interviewer on a personal level is forgivable.
So what’s the general consensus: how much ‘I’ should there be in good journalism?
Student Journalist, Magazine Fancier 