Can 'Metajournalism' Save Old Media—and Unmask Trump?

In the 1960s and 1970s, journalists gradually began writing more like novelists, framing their investigations using literary techniques more commonly found in fiction. The premise behind this development was a simple one: if journalists could get their readers to consume more journalism by giving them a more transportive experience—something closer to a "beach read" than homework—it would rescue journalism from the indifference of an audience increasingly drawn to banal televised entertainment. If hard facts and hard data had become too much like hard tack for world-weary readers to consume, they...