Reportern som ett verktyg för att belysa de andra: Narratologiska konsekvenser av den journalistiska ögonvittnespositionen

A reportage is the reporter's story about reality. Even though it details real events, it always presentsa personal interpretation of these events. In contrast to the news article, which primarilyinforms readers, a reportage involves a pronounced degree of personal narration. Normally it is based on the reporter's role as an eyewitness. This essay discusses how the position of the eyewitness establishes narratological structures inthe text, which seem to differ from the structures present in other kinds of non-fiction narrativestold in the first person. For instance, in reading an autobiography, a reader's empathy willbe drawn toward the main character. By contrast, a reportage will direct the reader's empathyaway from the reporter and towards the other. The narratological construction of a reportage may be studied as an interplay between threeinstances: the experiencing reporter, the narrating reporter and the director (the implied reporter).Thus, a three-part model may be utilised in order to help explain, for example, how ahomodiegetic narrator can be combined with external focalisation, and how a character otherthan the experiencing reporter can be internally focalised. It can also illuminate how the textmay employ a form of dissonance between the experiencing and the narrating reporter to serve ajournalistic purpose (displacing the perspective from person – the reporter – to subject-matter).