Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival, and Hope in an American City

Andrea Elliott originally conceived of the work on Dasani and her family as a series of long-form articles. These were eventually published by The New York Times, but Elliott later expanded the project to create Invisible Child—an influential book that explores the systemic roots and deeply personal effects of poverty. Elliott cites Jacob Riis’s seminal 1890 work of photojournalism, How the Other Half Lives, as a model for her own work—as Riis did at the end of the 19th century, Elliott wishes to document the experience of urban poverty in our time.

To write Invisible Child, Elliott adopted a controversial approach referred to as “immersive journalism.” In addition to traditional investigative journalism approaches, she spent a lot of time with the family, “embedding” herself in a sense to witness the story as it unfolded. Immersive journalism often presents and interprets the subjective experiences of its subjects in a manner that we might more readily associate with fiction. A more conventional journalist would be inclined to report such perceptions through direct quotations from people interviewed.

Herein lies the controversy. An immersive journalist like Elliott might argue that she has spent a lot of time with the family and has witnessed most of the events described; therefore, she has direct knowledge of the perceptions and attitudes of those involved.