Reintroducing the Journalist’s Body and Emotions in Metajournalistic Discourse: The Case of What I Didn’t Say

This article analyzes What I Didn’t Say, a literary magazine column that asks journalists to share personal stories from their reporting assignments. In answering this prompt, journalists produce a unique type of metajournalistic discourse that includes their bodies and emotions. Taking insight from three developing strands in journalism studies – metajournalistic discourses, journalists’ bodies, and emotions in journalism – the analysis illuminates how journalists’ bodies and emotions are connected to journalistic practices. The findings reveal that emotions led journalists toward a more holistic understanding of what they were reporting. This emotional engagement was linked to the use of their bodies across three levels: as a sensor, transducer, and depository. Finally, the findings demonstrate that narrow conceptions of journalism that exclude the journalist’s body and emotions miss crucial aspects of how the body is instrumental in journalistic practice.