Remarkable journalism: John Hersey's Hiroshima

Hiroshima: the first city in the world to be destroyed by a nuclear bomb and a book by John Hersey. Unlike the city, the book was never destroyed. But both have only rebuilt themselves since the event – the city, literally and the book in numbers of copies.

Hiroshima is the largest Japanese city in the Chugoku region, the largest island of Japan. On August 6, 1945 the United States of America dropped an atomic bomb on the city. It killed 80,000 people almost instantly.

John Hersey was assigned to report on what happened. Rather than telling the story of crushed buildings, he told the stories of six lucky survivors’s crushed lives.

The intention was to print the 36,000 word article in four instalments in The New Yorker, but once the story was written no one wanted to break the piece up. It was kept a secret from New Yorker employees and on August 31, 1946, John Hersey’s Hiroshima filled the magazine.

The article was a hit. Harold Ross, editor of The New Yorker, said he’d never felt so satisfied with a publication after Hiroshima was printed. Copies sold out on newsstands and were being scalped for $15 to $20 – the magazine cost 15 cents. Apparently Albert Einstein even tried to order 1,000 copies – that never happened. And ABC radio dedicated four half-hour long programs to reading the story on-air.

The sensation was so huge, the article was eventually printed as a book and has been continuously reprinted since.

And for good reason – I think. The story is especially effective for two reasons: (1) Hersey’s dry, reportorial style of journalism lets the subjects’s stories write themselves. We don’t need his opinion. And (2) Hiroshima tells the stories of human beings, not buildings, not war politics. This allows readers to connect with the narratives. It’s an emotional ‘real person’ story. Everyone can relate to a struggle, therefore, everyone can read Hersey’s article and grasp, at least a portion of, the magnitude of the situation those six survivors went through – this instead of trying to relate to some political figure’s decision to drop the bomb.

I wonder, however, if pictures were missing from the book. On the one hand, they’d provide readers answers to their burning questions of what many scenarios and people looked like. What did these people look like? Hersey never really describes anyone. But on the other hand, the fact that Hersey focuses on presenting facts allows readers to imagine. The lack of pictures force readers to over-exaggerate the devastation, an effect that I think was intended and necessary, because adding pictures would mean filling in a part of the mystery for readers. Keeping this away from them makes them feel vulnerable when it comes to the possibilities of how things could’ve looked. This vulnerable feeling is essential if readers want to even begin to understand how these people might’ve felt.

At least that’s how I felt as I read the book.

Another thing that resonated with me is how Hersey never put himself into the story. He just presented other people’s information and facts surrounding the bombing. Hersey never had to try and make the story emotional because he let it be emotional. By this I mean, rather than trying to show readers where they should feel emotion, he just presented the information and let them decide the emotional parts – and there were many.

I think this is a technique that a journalist can try and mock as much as possible.

But at the same time, I question this idea because there are many other journalistic pieces where a journalist puts themselves in the story. For example the documentary film: Shake Hands with the Devil: The Journey of Roméo Dallaire. Dallaire, even though he’s not a journalist by profession plays the role of one throughout the 1994 Rwandan genocide to try and bring international attention to the issue in attempt to help stop it. While Dallaire told the stories of others, he also told his own. His story evoked a lot of emotion as well.

This leaves me to conclude that there isn’t necessarily a better way to tell a story. But I will say there is a more difficult way: that’s the Hersey way. He wasn’t in Hiroshima when the bomb dropped. He took no part in the story other than to be the one to tell it. The amount of research he likely had to go through pulling stories like that from people going through such an emotional and traumatic time is not only amazing – it’s reflective of his journalistic talent.

Also note: I chose to add a picture of two Hiroshima victims. What do you think about including them?

(Photos taken from: amazon.com; hiroshima.com; discoverhiroshima.com)