The New Journalism, which uses literary techniques usually restricted to fiction, has been categorized and analyzed from a number of perspectives, but little effort has been made to delineate its intellectual and philosophical roots. The New Journalism arose from the intellectual tradition of Romanticism, as opposed to Classicism, the movement that dominated traditional journalism. The adoption of Romanticism meant that journalists could form a world view in which humankind was considered an inseparable part of nature, subjective perception had an equal place with that of the omniscient observer, and knowledge could be acquired through personal experience rather than through exclusive reliance on logic and scientific modes of inquiry. The result has been that New Journalists have not only adopted a wider variety of literary techniques than those employed by traditional journalists, but have also been willing to explore areas that traditional writers have considered "impossible" to cover. This expanded world view has resulted in a return to an ancient epistemological foundation: a mythopoeic world view. This return has meant that journalism's intellectual milieux has for the first time placed an equal emphasis not only on what is known but also on how that knowledge came to be acquired. This change in emphasis has profound implications for the types of reporting journalists attempt as well as the results of that reporting. (FL)