The New New Journalism by Robert Boynton
Published 2005 · 171,283 words · about 10 hours at an average pace · Journalism & Reportage
How hard is The New New Journalism to read?
The New New Journalism scores 40 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it moderately challenging. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.
- Vocabulary: 75 out of 100
- Accessible journalistic prose; technical craft terms are explained in context.
- Sentence structure: 72 out of 100
- Abstraction: 82 out of 100
- Craft concepts are concrete and process-oriented throughout.
- Information density: 78 out of 100
- Each interview covers method, ethics, research, structure, and voice systematically.
- Narrative indirection: 25 out of 100
- Direct question-and-answer format; craft insights are stated plainly.
- Symbolic density: 18 out of 100
- Analytical and documentary rather than figurative.
- Ironic distance: 20 out of 100
- Boynton's framing is earnest; irony is present only in some subjects' voices.
- Resolution withholding: 25 out of 100
- Each interview reaches a sense of resolution about the subject's practice.
- Structural complexity: 30 out of 100
- Nineteen independent profiles with an introductory essay framing the collection.
How The New New Journalism is regarded
The New New Journalism holds a literary regard score of 55 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.