Opinion: First person in Journalism

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By Diego Martorell

In Journalism school, back in Chile, they usually tell us that it’s almost forbidden to write stories in first person. Under that instruction, as journalism students, we almost never start a story with “I think that…”

But when I was reading some of M.L Elrick´s investigative pieces for Fox 2, I noticed that in two of them, he actually did.

At first, it was shocking. How can he do that?, I thought. But after thinking about it, I started to believe that it was a very cool idea. So my thoughts then changed to why not?

Personally, I think that it’s a great way to make a story understandable for the reader because you can simulate and achieve a much more natural or intuitive way of communication. This, of course, requires you actively avoid becoming a main character of the story.

Here is the explanation that M.L Elrick gave to me when I asked him about the use of this narrative resource.

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