The practice of book-length journalism: re-framing the debate

The term book-length journalism is not commonly used in academic and professional literature but it is used in this paper to draw attention to the medium and scope of an area of journalism that is practised by a significant minority of practitioners. Using this term rather than others in more common use, such as literary journalism or literary non-fiction or narrative journalism, opens the way to exploring three important issues: the extent to which this area of journalism is practised at book-length rather than in newspapers; whether there are particular ethical issues that arise in this area of practice; and, third, the affect of conflating of a narrative approach with notions of literary merit.