{"id":16792,"date":"2026-02-20T14:10:58","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T14:10:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/?p=16792"},"modified":"2026-02-20T14:10:59","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T14:10:59","slug":"second-person-in-storytelling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/2026\/02\/20\/second-person-in-storytelling\/","title":{"rendered":"Tricky questions with using second person in storytelling"},"content":{"rendered":" \n
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Sign up for the Nieman Storyboard newsletter,<\/em><\/a> delivered every Friday in your inbox.<\/em><\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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Dear Storyboard community: <\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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While I was away last week, my colleague at Nieman Lab, editor Laura Hazard Owen, raised some excellent questions<\/a> about an essay in The Atlantic by Elizabeth Bruenig, \u201cThis Is How a Child Dies of Measles.\u201d<\/a> Writing entirely in the second person, Bruenig tells the story of a mother whose two unvaccinated children get measles after attending a birthday gathering \u2014 and then writes in horrifying detail about how one of the children dies. An excerpt: <\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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It\u2019s a classic kids\u2019 party: Tears and lemonade are spilled; mud and cake get smeared into the rug; confetti balloons are popped one by one, showering elated children in rainbow-paper flakes. Sunbeams through the windows illuminate floating dust motes\u2014and, imperceptibly, microdroplets of mucus carrying the measles virus, expelled from an infected but asymptomatic child who is hopping and laughing among the others. Your daughter breathes that same air, inhaling the virus directly into her respiratory tract.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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The essay was based on reporting and interviews with doctors, but it was not a real case study. As Owen writes: <\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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When I initially read Bruenig\u2019s story, I was stunned: An Atlantic staff writer\u2019s unvaccinated child had died of measles in the 2020s, and now she was writing about it? At the end of Bruenig\u2019s piece, though, there\u2019s an editor\u2019s note: \u201cThis story is based on extensive reporting and interviews with physicians, including those who have cared directly for patients with measles.\u201d That was the point when I sent a gift link to my mom group: \u201cas far as I can tell this piece is fiction. What do we think about this choice? I am very conflicted!!!\u201d My conflict stemmed from my concern that, though the piece was heavily researched, it was not a true story. I wondered if the key people whose minds might be changed by it \u2014 people who don\u2019t vaccinate their kids \u2014 would brush it off as fiction, or fake.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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Further adding to the confusion, Owen reports that The Atlantic’s initial press push didn’t make it clear the piece was a fictionalized account, and the disclaimer was added at the end after it was published. <\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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The second person POV has been used in both fiction and nonfiction, but it’s not typical, which means editors and writers must take even greater care to not confuse readers. Editor Whet Moser reminds us<\/a> of the classic 1997 Outside magazine feature written as a hypothetical in second person, \u201cThe Cold, Hard Facts of Freezing to Death,\u201d<\/a> by Peter Stark.\u00a0(You can read our breakdown of that story in the Nieman Storyboard archive<\/a>.)<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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As a reader, my first assumption about the second person point of view might be that the journalist is trying to protect the identity of someone who needs to remain anonymous. Or there is another reason, as seen in Tom Junod\u2019s 2015 Esquire story, \u201cThe Lethal Presidency of Barack Obama,\u201d<\/a> in which Junod employs the second person to get inside the mind of the president, and then make a direct appeal to him about the use of drone strikes.  <\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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Given the questions arising from the Atlantic piece, it\u2019s important for writers and editors to understand what readers might expect and assume from a story, especially when these pieces are shared across social media as a headline and link without context. The Atlantic publishes journalism and fiction, as well as essays that mix opinion and reporting \u2014 so what does it mean when a story is categorized under \u201cIdeas\u201d? Would the essay have been less ambiguous if it were a New York Times Opinion piece, or if the subhead (\u201cWhen your family becomes a data point in an outbreak\u201d) had not been positioned directly above Bruenig’s byline? <\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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Send me a note (editor@niemanstoryboard.org<\/a>) and let me know what you think. You can read Owen’s full Nieman Lab story and interview with Bruenig here<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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Journalist Tricia Romano on the pros and cons of writing an oral history<\/a><\/h2>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n
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\"Tricia<\/a>
Tricia Romano<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div> \n
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This week on the Nieman Storyboard podcast, I spoke with journalist Tricia Romano<\/a> about how she constructed her critically acclaimed oral history of the Village Voice, \u201cThe Freaks Came Out to Write: The Definitive History of the Village Voice, the Radical Paper That Changed American Culture,\u201d<\/a> which involved conducting more than 200 interviews about the famed New York City alt-weekly.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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\u201cThe genius of an oral history is that, if it’s done well, it looks effortless. \u200aEven if it’s not your words, you’re creating something. It’s like a big giant slab of stone that you have to carve out, with only what you’ve got [from interviews].\u201d<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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[ <\/strong>Read the story<\/strong><\/a>]<\/strong><\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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