eporter” had to be the inevitable title for legendary investigative journalist Seymour M. Hersh’s 2018 autobiography. It’s perfect — a simple, proud word that encompasses craft, passion and conscience. In Hersh’s telling, it’s the grandest job in the news business and, done right … | Continue reading
hen it came time to write about the 50th anniversary of man’s first walk on the moon, Charles P. Pierce jettisoned sentimentality like a booster rocket. The opening of Pierce’s July 20 Esquire column touches — briefly and barely — on Neil Armstrong’s historic footsteps. He relega … | Continue reading
EDITOR’S NOTE: This piece was shared, with thanks and permission, by our friends at The Poynter Institute. AUTHOR’S NOTE: American author and Nobel laureate Toni Morrison died August 5, 2019, at the age of 88. I studied her writing and wrote about it in 2016 book “The Art of X-r … | Continue reading
ince 2015, Michael Kruse of Politico has written hundreds of thousands of words about Donald J. Trump, plumbing the President’s unorthodox campaign tactics, his dubious finances, his penchant for lawsuits, his biography and his psyche. In the process, his “Trumpology,” amounts to … | Continue reading
wasn’t sure what to expect. This would be my first time attending the Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference and, as in any situation where I’m faced with the unknown, I was excited yet a bit nervous to be face-to-face with storytellers I’ve admired for years. The great news? My … | Continue reading
ournalism that explores “true crime” is booming, in everything from investigative stories to books to gripping TV documentaries. But it can easily risk being exploitative. That cautionary note comes from Pamela Colloff, whose justice system reporting for Texas Monthly, and now Pr … | Continue reading
sentence that grabs you by the heart and hooks you into the narrative is one of the most powerful ways to become one with the pages. It also keeps the reader thinking days later, kind of like a good movie. That was true for me when I read Cally Carswell’s reported essay, publishe … | Continue reading
EDITOR’S NOTE: The Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference, now in its 15th year, has grown into one of the the premier journalistic gatherings in the United States. This year’s conference, held last weekend at the University of North Texas, centered around the theme of justice: “ … | Continue reading
iami Herald reporter Julie K. Brown has gotten a lot of reverse ink in recent weeks — not in stories by her, but about her. Brown is the reporter who spent the last two years dogging the connection between super-rich financier Jeffrey Epstein and allegations of years of sex abuse … | Continue reading
EDITOR’S NOTE: Metrics aside, the true test of a good story is that it evokes other stories. That’s what happened when I asked veteran storyteller Chuck Haga to write a “Why’s This So Good” essay about a story by James Eli Shiffer, an editor at the Star Tribune in Minneapolis. Sh … | Continue reading
t first glance, it might seem an unlikely story from a veteran investigative reporter. But it was those investigative instincts and skills that James Eli Shiffer used to report and write the sweet, sad life story of Janet Lee Dahl, who died 60 years ago at the age of 10. Now a … | Continue reading
n November 2017, Los Angeles Times staff writer Thomas Curwen noticed an email subject line that intrigued him: UCLA linguist seeking to awaken the sleeping language of the Tongva – LA’s indigenous people. The email — a story pitch from a publicist — brought his attention to a pr … | Continue reading
hirty-one years ago, The Los Angeles Times published the first of what came to be known as “Column One” stories, inspired by a few editors who wanted more than breaking news on the front page. “They wanted something a little unexpected … and to hell with the time element,” said S … | Continue reading
ou can’t turn around in the U.S. these days without bumping into a cry of “Fake News!” or a news story decrying the same. Not that spin is a modern phenomenon. Throughout human history, propaganda has been a tool employed with mastery by everyone from kings to ad pitchmen to the … | Continue reading
efore Michael Paterniti published some of the most strangely beautiful and empathetic stories of his generation, before he was a contributor to The New York Times Magazine and a correspondent for GQ, he was an 18-year-old standing by the side of a Canadian road, trying to hitchhi … | Continue reading
s a reporter, Bryan Denson seems to have done it all — working the police beat, writing longform narratives, teaming up on big investigative features, and producing a nonfiction book. While a reporter at The Oregonian, he was a a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in national report … | Continue reading
Novelists often speak of their characters as real people. They are people who have lives that existed before the moment the novel begins and outside its frame, and who reveal their full selves over time, as the writer writes. They apparently say things the author didn’t expect, a … | Continue reading
eré Longman has almost always been a sports reporter. Aside from a few years in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when he covered Dallas Public Schools for the Dallas Times Herald, he’s been writing about both the sports we watch and the sports we play. He covered high school and c … | Continue reading
aced with nonstop jackhammering, the steady growl and beep of dump trucks, and sickening spirals of dust, residents of a peaceful Manhattan neighborhood searched for ways to take action against a mysterious couple who were tunneling into the earth to make way for a basement swimm … | Continue reading
EDITOR’S NOTE: It is not unusual these days to come across yet another announcement of the death of a notable journalist. Those who came into the profession during the heady times of the post-WWII boom, Vietnam and Watergate are now of in that inevitable age of decline. But if th … | Continue reading
EDITOR’S NOTE: The Mueller Report (capitalized by most news organizations, which is interesting unto itself) was released April 18, 2019 — almost two months ago. These days, two months is so last century. But The Mueller Report has a shelf life that continues to capture almost da … | Continue reading
f you have you taken a picture and shared it with no text, or studied a news image to see if it was “real,” or wondered if “photography” is an accurate term for the digital wave overwhelming and manipulating our social and political lives, then you understand that we are in a vis … | Continue reading
EDITOR’S NOTE: Because the world can’t seem to get enough of “Game of Thrones,” we are co-publishing this essay with our friends at The Poynter Institute, with their permission. Full disclosure: I haven’t seen a nano-second of “Thrones.” Despite the spoilers ahead, I now find mys … | Continue reading
chronic reality of writing: It’s a struggle. Or so it often (always?) seems if you’re the writer. You aren’t sure whether your information is sound, where to start your story, what’s essential and what you can leave out. As for finding a coherent structure … it can feel like tort … | Continue reading
he news that Herman Wouk, whose epic World War II novels kept him atop the best seller lists for much of his literary career, died May 17 at the age of 103, led me back more than five decades, and to a spot within inches of the bed where I sit writing this. There, perched … | Continue reading
e love hearing from Storyboard readers. A message from one, in response to last week’s pieces, inspired this U.S. Memorial Day post — something of a thoughtful holiday bonus. Among last week’s posts, we included two about war: A deep interview with pscyhologist and photo forensic … | Continue reading
remember seeing the photo for the first time. It was spring, 1968. I was 17 years old, a high school senior who would register for the draft that coming June. The unfolding war in Vietnam had become an obsession as I considered a future that might take me there. I also was an asp … | Continue reading
s the Memorial Day weekend approaches in the United States, war stories become part of an annual narrative commemorating those who served and died in battle. The stories often are woven from threads of horror and honor, of despair and romance. They are told in the hope we won’t f … | Continue reading
ot long ago, I came out of a theater in Tampa, Florida, and heard someone calling my name. It was Adan Martinez, a young college student who had just performed with a local symphony. He still wore his tux, and was beaming. I told him how proud I was of him. Adan, who also … | Continue reading
EDITOR’S NOTE: Authentic profiles are among the most rewarding, challenging and essential of journalistic art forms, requiring an alchemy of relationship, grit and elegance. The most successful often involve a bit of self-reflection, as a writer peers into the life of another to … | Continue reading
hen Elizabeth Weil thought of profiling Max Harris, one of two people facing criminal charges for Oakland’s deadly Ghost Ship fire, she figured another reporter must already be on the story. The fire, which took 36 lives when it swept through the artists’ collective in December 2 … | Continue reading
efore humans learned to write, they documented their lives through images with technologies fashioned from materials at hand. To create the renowned galleries of animals — objects of fascination, dreams of conquest — in the Lascaux Cave, painted in southwestern France 17,000 year … | Continue reading
n her 20 years traveling the world as a freelance writer, Rachel Louise Snyder has covered a hurricane in Honduras, a tsunami in Indonesia, and the forced sterilization of women in Tibet. But no experience abroad scarred her more than reporting on the hidden world of domestic v … | Continue reading
ow and again, in the wonderful world of reading, you stumble across a sentence that not only evokes a response or felling to what it says, but to how it says it. This is one of those sentences. It literally made me stop when I first read it, hold my breath for a second, and … | Continue reading
n his “New in Town” standup comedy special, John Mulaney tells how, when he was 10, he was in love with his babysitter, who he thought was much older. But as an adult, he discovered she’d been only 13 at the time of his crush. That his parents would have hired someone so young ma … | Continue reading
alking onto campus one morning in early April, coffee in hand, I approached Indiana University’s iconic Sample Gates. It’s always a spirit-lifting sight, especially with the statue of Ernie Pyle on the periphery. The gates were backlit by the rising sun. Landscapers were shovelin … | Continue reading
odern society works hard to find ways to talk about subjects that have long been taboo, and that left sufferers isolated and shrouded in shame. Things like mental illness, abortion, addiction and even rape are more and more brought into the light, where they can be understood — n … | Continue reading
here were two things I knew: I wanted to write a story about how heartburn can kill you, as it did my father, and I wanted to write for Undark, a really cool science magazine that prizes long-form journalism and has a New York Times pedigree. When I heard that its founder and edi … | Continue reading
he Loneliest Polar Bear” wasn’t just a heart-tugging news story. It was a suspenseful, multi-thousand word saga about an abandoned newborn polar bear. It was rationed into five chapters that were published in the print paper and online. It was graced with the kind of cute-animal … | Continue reading
wards from elite, independent institutions always offer a reminder of the powerful work being done by storytellers of all stripes. None moreso in journalism than the Pulitzer Prizes. This year’s Pulitzer for fiction went to “The Overstory” a sweeping and surprising epic by Richar … | Continue reading
EDITOR’S NOTE: Mass shootings have become a tragic American story. School shootings are an especially searing chapter in that narrative. This weeks marks the 20th anniversary of Columbine, a high school in Colorado where 13 students were shot to death. Also this week, the South … | Continue reading
ver since Donald Trump launched his presidential campaign in the summer of 2015, I have grown accustomed to the constant drumbeat of stories that pose the same question: How can white evangelical Christians support Trump in such overwhelming numbers? How can people who purport to … | Continue reading
n July 6, 2016, Philando Castile was killed by police officer Jeronimo Yanez during a traffic stop in suburban St. Paul, Minnesota. In the car with Castile at the time of the shooting were his girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, and her 4-year old daughter. The immediate aftermath of t … | Continue reading
oday marks the release of “Losing Earth: A Recent History,” Nathaniel Rich. The narrative tracks the story of a handful of scientists and politicians from 1979 to 1989 as they tried to build awareness of climate change, and gain support for policies that would avoid environmental … | Continue reading
itching rises again and again as one of the main challenges facing writers who want to make the leap from idea to publication. Whether you’re a reporter hustling support for an enterprise piece in your newsroom, or a freelancer trying to land a magazine assignment or book contrac … | Continue reading
he Trials of Whiteboy Rick,” the Atavist Magazine story, by Evan Hughes, of a baby-faced young white man who rose to the top of Detroit’s mostly black cocaine world. “I’ll Be Gone in the Dark” about journalist Michelle McNamara’s obsessive search for Golden State Killer. “Conve … | Continue reading
very story has a beginning, middle, and an end. But in the telling, stories don’t necessarily conform to that neat order. For Dave Cullen, freelance journalist and bestselling author, there is plenty of room for creativity in this age-old writing convention. Cullen’s book “Colu … | Continue reading