Week 7 Reading Response

The two pieces from Literary Journalism, by Ted Conover and Mark Kramer, both do a really good job of framing a gigantic issue within a smaller context; both authors find a specific topic to employ as a synecdoche for a larger one. Both Conover and Kramer spend a lot of time in their pieces on descriptions of place- physical drescriptions of land, modes of transportation, and towns and cities. With innumerably layered issues like AIDS in Southern Africa and capitalization in the former Soviet Union, revealing the complexity of the issue and the problems that heed solution, are what I as a reader want to discern from reporting on the topic; Conover and Kramer meet the mark.

The personal and anecdotal stories that both authors weave into their larger pieces are really well placed,I think. They work as a bridge between reader and subject and reveal a lot about time and place, giving a context to the critical events of particular to both. Especially in the Conover piece, the attention the author pays to the characteristics of the lives of the men he travels with tells so much about the nature of AIDS in that place and makes a human connection to what could otherwise be a statistical study. By getting a sense of what the people involved with the larger issue eat; what their customs and beliefs are; how language and communication work; how government, industry, and foreign influence affect their survival, we get a sense of how the real issue the author is writing about is woven into their world and why it is such a complex issue.

Kramer and Conover are both present in their pieces; we see the story through their eyes. I think that this benefits both stories; it adds another human layer to the story and both are good guides through the stories. Even though the pieces are dated I think they were important readings as both prove that it is crucial to be able to revisit journalism to re-examine how things looked and worked at a particular place and time in order to see how things are similar and different today and what can be gleamed from the juxtaposition.