What is the Difference Between Attached Journalism and Unattached Journalism?

What is the difference between attached journalism and unattached journalism? Some might say it is the difference between making the story the focal point of the article and making the writer the focal point, but that glib description misses the point entirely. A better way to look at the topic is to consider how a story might be approached from the school of attached journalism and the school of unattached journalism. The legal woes of such young, rich and famous people as Paris Hilton, Nicole Ritchie and Lindsay Lohan present a topical arena for an example. The unattached journalist would simply report on the facts of the each individual case, or even taking all these DUI stories as a whole. The focus of the report could potentially expand to include the biographies of Hilton, Ritchie and Lohan, as well as the legalities involved in driving under the influence, and even the tangential but still focused element of celebrity punishment. The attached journalist, however, might expand to include analysis of the effect of too much money coming too quickly to people too immature to deal with it, or even an examination of wild behavior of young people the same age who don't have access to the money and privilege of celebrities.

A common criticism of the school of attached is that it is eroding the foundation of what may well be the last institution not taken over by the postmodernist preoccupation with relativistic integrity. In other words, since every other media outlet is constructed upon purely subjective views of taste and opinion, we should struggle to hold back those forces from journalism which has traditionally been concerned with empirical truths and facts. This is especially true when even top level government security information is used in an entirely subjective way that is molded to fit the preconceived desires of those who commissioned in order to justify mass murder.