The Square Resist the Usual Characters

A new documentary on the Egyptian revolution makes the uprising, rather than the uprising’s participants, its centerpiece

Over the years, I’ve had occasion to spend enough time with people who get reported about to hear this complaint: “We’re not characters. We’re people.” It stems, I think, from a misunderstanding: For many journalists, writing for character is fundamentally a sign of respect, but sources see it as dramatizing their reality. It’s a real, and important, fissure between journalism jargon and the rest of the world.