A Letter from Brendan Gill to John Hersey Containing Autographs Captioned "To Be Sold When We Are Famous", Yale Archive
John Hersey's "Hiroshima"
An Atomic Reconstruction of Journalism
MODERN DAY
"If Hiroshima demonstrates anything as a piece of journalism it is the enduring power of storytelling. John Hersey combined all his experience as a war correspondent with his skill as a novelist."
~ Caroline Raphael, The British Broadcasting Company
This quote seems to sum up the influence of John Hersey’s "Hiroshima". It is the strongest example of what Tom Wolfe (author of “The Right Stuff”) coined “New Journalism”. Consequently, it changed how reporters considered journalism, a sentiment that carries into the modern-day press (Lemann).
You can see Hersey's influence in many different works of modern journalism.
Excerpt from "Firestone and the Warlord", T. Christian Miller and Jonathan Jones
Excerpt from "An Unbelievable Story of Rape", T. Christian Miller and Ken Armstrong
Excerpt from "Buddhist monks incite Muslim killings in Myanmar", Jason Szep
"I expect it would be hard to find a successful narrative journalist who hasn’t been influenced by Hersey, whether directly or through some force of the cosmos"
~ Jacqui Banaszynski, Nieman Foundation for Journalism
John Hersey’s "Hiroshima" was a great feat of communication that not only showed the world the truth about nuclear warfare but also founded a new type of journalism that persists to this day, furthering our understanding of writing as a whole.
Excerpt from "The Legend of the License"
"There is one sacred rule of journalism...The writer must not invent. The legend on the license must read: none of this was made up."
~ John Hersey, The Legend of the License
"Writer John Hersey removing book from bookshelf in his office at TIME", Getty Images