Sin and Syntax » political reporting http://www.sinandsyntax.com An online salon for those who love wicked good prose. Thu, 02 Sep 2010 14:05:13 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 Point of view, with attitude http://www.sinandsyntax.com/blog/point-of-view-with-attitude/ http://www.sinandsyntax.com/blog/point-of-view-with-attitude/#comments Sat, 19 Sep 2009 20:07:18 +0000 Constance Hale http://www.sinandsyntaxsalon.com/?p=189
  • My APB (all points-of-view bulletin)
    • ]]>     As far as playing with point of view, and not in blogs but in the pages of The New York Times and Rolling Stone, two of my favorite political journalists combine novel points of view with strong attitude and voice. They would be Mark Leibovich and Matt Taibbi.

    Check out this story from November 2006 (one of my all-time favorites) by Leibovich. It’s written in the classic reportorial third person, but an awful lot of Leibovich seeps in. My favorite paragraph, describing President Bush after the “thumpin’” Republicans took in the primaries: “He looked worn at his must-see midday news conference, in need of a haircut, good-night’s sleep, better makeup job, hug, vacation in Crawford or some combination thereof. The grooves across his forehead were dark and articulated, his voice slightly hoarse. He wore a maroon tie, the color of blood.”

    Then look at a 2007 profile of Mike Huckabee by Taibbi. He starts in the slangy second person (“you”), then writes the rest of the piece in the first.

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    1. My APB (all points-of-view bulletin)

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