In my Great Journalism class we read the works of literary journalists. My professor talks about the differences between literary journalism and regular journalism. One of the distinctions he makes is that journalists depict reality, but literary journalists depict reality in order to make a grander statement about the world. In other words, literary journalists either overtly or covertly add meaning into their reporting of events. This is what I think is both a strength and weakness of literary journalism, and here is why.

I am reading a book called Maximum City by Suketu Mehta as part of the course. The author describes racism he has experienced for being East Indian, ironically in India. After talking about how he was refused an apartment in an area of Bombay where they only want white foreign tenants, he says:

"I am one of the great brown thieving horde, no matter how far I go. In Varanasi I was refused admittance to the backpackers' inn on similar grounds: I am Indian. I might rape the white women."

The problem with this passage is that you don't know if the last sentence is actually true. Did the inn really tell him they are worried he might rape white women, or has he inferred meaning into their actions in order to depict his own reality? Obviously, either way, what they did was bullshit, but as a reader, I still want to know if they really said that to him. I like the idea of inferring meaning into your reporting, but I want to know exactly what is fact and what is the author's perception.

That's my two cents.