Wolfe goes on to talk about an unspoken competition between the reporters to get a "scoop" meaning getting the biggest and best story before any of the others. An example of this is Mok, who jumps into the freezing sea, and swims over to a man in a boat in order to get an interview and meet his deadline.
The main idea in this section is that journalism is just a step towards the final triumph of writing a novel-a dream achieved by Portis, who quits his job on a whim, moves into a shack and writes a novel called Norwood, followed by True Grit.
Wolfe then goes on to talk about columnists, and how Breslin made the revolutionary discovery that it was feasible for a columnist to actually leave the building and do reporting on his own. Breslin would go out and cover a story as a reporter, and then write about it in his column.
The book then goes on to explain how most columnists run out of material after 8-10 weeks, and begin writing about people they overhear in the street etc.
The main theme of the book is how journalism changed. Wolfe identified 4 devices that were conventionally used in novels, that he began to use in journalism.
These are:
- Scene-by-scene construction
- Full recorded dialogue
- 3rd person point of view
- Recording gestures, facial expressions, manner, habits, clothing etc
Wolfe claimed "I had the feeling I was doing things no-one had ever done before in journalism, moving beyond the conventional limits of journalism-more ambitious, intense, more detailed."
However, this movement was attacked as impressionistic, as it was extraordinary for a new style to be created via journalism.
Novelists began claiming that their books were not novels, but a new literary genre they had invented so that literary people would take it seriously.
The second part of the book is a collection of examples of this "new journalism".
