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By the late 1960s, national turmoil—stirred up by assassinations, Civil Rights protests, the Vietnam War, the drug culture, and the women’s movement—had many middle- and working-class Americans questioning traditional authority. Key institutions, including journalism, lost some credibility. As a result, journalists began exploring new models of reporting as a way to regain readers’ favor.

Literary journalism (sometimes dubbed “the new journalism”) adapted fictional techniques, such as detailed setting descriptions and extensive character dialogue, to nonfiction material and in-depth reporting. This form of journalism had first surfaced in the late 1930s and 1940s, but it gained popularity in the 1960s, especially in magazines like Rolling Stone. In daily newspapers, literary journalism took the form of longer feature stories on cultural trends and social issues, augmented with detailed description or dialogue. While writers such as Tom Wolfe, Norman Mailer, and Hunter S. Thompson were the big names in literary journalism initially, today writers such as Jon Krakauer (Into Thin Air, Under the Banner of Heaven) and Adrian Nicole LeBlanc (Random Family) keep this tradition alive. (See Chapter 13 for more information on the culture of journalism.)