Bill Russell, unbeatable on and off the court

ributes this past week to basketball great Bill Russell were as many as they were deserved. I couldn’t follow them all, which is a pity. Sportswriting and obituaries often display some of the best writing in journalism. Wedding the two, as happened in every Russell tribute I was … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 2 years ago

Punning the way to a point

note from a professional friend landed in my inbox a few days ago, with this quick header: “… the best lede I’ve ever read.” So I clicked. (Wouldn’t you?) It took me to a piece by Dana Milbank, opinion columnist for the Washington Post, about, the final resting place of Ivana Tru … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 2 years ago

Yardscaping your way to a story

he temperatures topped 100 Fahrenheit week (38+ Centigrade) up at the mountain cabin one day last week. The three-man yardscape crew seemed indifferent. They spent their first afternoon prepping the site; they dumped mounds of dusty gravel, unloaded heavy flagstones from a flatbe … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 2 years ago

yardscaping your way to a story

he temperatures topped 100 Fahrenheit week (38+ Centigrade) up at the mountain cabin one day last week. The three-man yardscape crew seemed indifferent. They spent their first afternoon prepping the site; they dumped mounds of dusty gravel, unloaded heavy flagstones from a flatbe … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 2 years ago

Do Not Erase! the magic that happens on deadline

fave recent story find: a tight little feature in the Boston Globe: ‘Please do not erase’: A treasured whiteboard at Boston’s Children Hospital has not been touched for 15 years.  Whiteboards are on my geek-love list, along with flip-charts, Sharpies and hot-pink paper clips. So … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 2 years ago

Bear essentials and beyond

tand-out story craft never loses its luster. But it really is time to start sharing gems from my STORYBOARD SAVED file before they lose their sparkle. With no particular order or theme, here are a few that caught my attention in recent weeks: I had hoped to share a post I saw on … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 2 years ago

Dan Barry, baseball and love of the (writing) game

f there is such a thing as the perfect summer read, this might be it. First, it’s about baseball. Even if you’re not seduced by the sport, the writing it has inspired through the years can be superb — as precise as a fastball over the edge of the plate, as romantic as dusk at […] | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 2 years ago

How Rolling Stone revisited a mass tragedy to ‘humanize the horrendous’

n the first half of 2021, Matt Sullivan and his family took refuge in Miami from the pandemic in New York City, and to finish his first book, “Can’t Knock the Hustle: Inside the Season of Protest, Pandemic, and Progress with the Brooklyn Nets’ Superstars of Tomorrow.” The beach w … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 2 years ago

Shaping a historic narrative: The Jan. 6 hearings as story craft

uch attention has been rightly paid to the congressional hearings into events before, during and after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. By any account, it qualifies as a big deal. Perhaps one of the biggest in American history, with unprecedented implications for dem … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 2 years ago

The Mayborn is back! In person and online

Storyboard standard was tracking and reporting on as many of the top annual journal conferences we could, from association events — like the Society of Environmental Journalists, Investigative Reporters and Editors, the Association of Health Care Journalists and more — to the big … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 2 years ago

Francis X. Clines: The consummate newspaper journalist

very afternoon when I was a kid, the Green Bay (Wisconsin) Press Gazette landed in the driveway of our house. Actually, squinting back, I think it got tucked between the storm door and screen door. Such were the small graces of village life in the 1960s. My father would get home … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 2 years ago

Raise your glasses to four lessons all writers can learn by judging craft beer

aybe not 99, but at least a few dozen bottles of beer are along the wall. We take one down, pass it around, make sure the barcode on the bottle matches the form on our computer screens, and pry open the cap. My judging partner and I each pour a small sample into a plastic […] | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 2 years ago

A tribute to the consummate reporter/writer: Francis X. Clines

EDITOR’S NOTE: This tribute is shared with permission from our friends at The Poynter Institute. rank Clines arrived at The New York Times in 1958, one year before the death of that most brilliant Times writer Meyer Berger. It was the greatest replenishment of talent the Big Appl … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 2 years ago

So you want to write a book? Brace yourself for some serious self-promotion and, yes, TikTok

t was the mid-1990s. I was sitting across a white damask table-clothed table at a midtown Manhattan steak house watching my editor, Bob Loomis, alternately cut into a ribeye and sip a dry Martini. This was it, and I didn’t even know it. Loomis was then a septuagenarian, a very mu … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 2 years ago

When your saved story becomes one more overstuffed space

ne of the few things I appreciate about Facebook, besides tours of my friends’ faraway lives and photos of the babies being born to my former “Baby Js”, is the SAVE feature. It’s also, for me, one of the most dangerous. It’s so easy to tuck something there that catches my interes … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 2 years ago

promo a book the life that was the life that is

t was the mid-1990s. I was sitting across a white damask table-clothed table at a midtown Manhattan steak house watching my editor, Bob Loomis, alternately cut into a ribeye and sip a dry Martini. This was it, and I didn’t even know it. Loomis was then a septuagenarian, a very mu … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 2 years ago

A meteorologist attracts an audience with casual writing and controversial views

 f not for the astrophysicist and author Carl Sagan, University of Washington atmospheric scientist Cliff Mass might be writing and teaching about Nor’easters, Mount Washington in New Hampshire and Boston’s Back Bay instead of atmospheric rivers, Mount Rainier and the influences … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 2 years ago

So you want to write a book? The risks and rewards of memoir

or well over a decade, my memoir was a perennial backburner project. I would vow to carve out time to write each week, but work or life always took precedence. I kept a blog where I posted personal essays, and at one point I strung these essays together into a drafty, poorly-stru … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 2 years ago

Struggling to explain American democracy to a visitor

ith something of a literary apology to Garrison Keillor … It was anything but a quiet week in Lake Woebegone, aka These dis-United States, as we headed into the nation’s 246th birthday. Rulings from the U.S. Supreme Court dropped fast and deep, like a set of car keys tossed into … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 2 years ago

A podcast focused on diversity practices what it preaches

hen I asked Saadia Khan whether or not she identifies as a journalist, she said no. Her definition of a journalist: “someone with a degree in journalism or has worked in the field.” Without those credentials, Khan considers herself an entrepreneur and a human rights and immigrati … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 2 years ago

“… the Jenga tower simply will not collapse.”

n the minority writing of last month’s Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade, three justices delivered a dissent that was both lacerating rebuke and baleful elegy. Folded unexpectedy inside: a surprising reference to a popular game that served as a lesson in metaphor, ne … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 2 years ago

The vital scramble after news that will reverberate forward

ust when I think the dominant news of the day is too big to be pushed aside, it is eclipsed by other news. I was working through an early draft of the newsletter last Friday morning (June 24, 2002) when my inbox pinged with this news alert from The New York Times: The Supreme Cou … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 2 years ago

A science writer with comedic timing profiles an alligator with star power

reat story ideas are everywhere, and Corrine Purtill spotted a gem on a family trip to the Los Angeles Zoo, where she learned the story of a celebrity with a checkered past. Purtill had just joined the Los Angeles to cover science and behavior, and didn’t know if editors would em … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 2 years ago

A “not a journalist” mom writes about community, parenting and letting go

onclusion based on anecdotal evidence: Anyone who writes a regular column for  newspaper or magazine works harder than you know. Corollary: Community newspaper columnists, who usually can’t tap events outside their small community, work even harder. Ashley Lodato is a hard-workin … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 2 years ago

A viral image, a question of provenance and a consideration of truth

n the 100-plus days since Vladimir Putin ordered his Russian army into Ukraine, I have done something I rarely do on social media: Forwarded shares, many days a week, of art from and about Ukraine. I’ve wondered, of course, if it makes one whit of difference. But short of going t … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 2 years ago

What to do when words fail you

ometimes the words just don’t work. I don’t mean they don’t come together easily or work well or string together in pretty rhythms. Those are annoyances we seldom get to indulge in deadline journalism. I mean they simply don’t work. At all. That’s what happened last week as I wro … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 2 years ago

A reporter explores the laws and emotion involved in helping her father die

y March 2020, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), the incurable illness also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, had already ravaged Ron Deprez’s once-strong body with particular cruelty. He needed help with one last thing: to die. It fell to his daughter Esmé to make it happen. Esmé … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 2 years ago

When gun violence visits: Previous work to guide your stories

fter 19 students and two teachers were gunned down in a classroom in Uvalde, Texas, the chorus rose: “Enough!” It came with a sad refrain: “It will happen again.” And it did. As many as 15 mass shootings in the U.S. (defined as a single incident in which four people are killed an … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 2 years ago

A writer’s tribute to Roger Angell: For the love of the reading journey

or all my life, I’ve been a baseball agnostic. The thing I like most about baseball  is that, by and large, it is played outside in the summertime, generally in the cool of the evening. Johnny Sain, an old pitching coach from back in the day, used to use that phrase to describe t … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 2 years ago

Eternal pain, intractable politics and public detachment

ow much difference does three days make? Too much, at least when it comes to our gnat-like attention span. Three days is the time it takes for the public to shift from outrage to resignation in response to a mass shooting. That’s according to research by two professors at Princet … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 2 years ago

Lauren Hough goes on a hunt for Bonnie and Clyde and her Grandpa Chuck

auren Hough has been a bouncer and a barista, a cable guy and a member of the military. But in a recent piece for Texas Highways, the acclaimed essayist shows off another role: eagle-eyed excavator of the past. Hough’s 2021 debut memoir/essay collection, “Leaving Isn’t the Hardes … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 2 years ago

Packing a punch in a few words

f you want to see some creative short-form storytelling, you can skip right past Twitter and TikTok and head straight to the news. Newspapers, news sites, TV news — any with cred are running images of demonstrations rising up in protest of the expectation that the U.S. Supreme Co … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 2 years ago

Stories behind bars: The power and pitfalls of “emotional truths”

hen I began reading Evan Allen’s powerful, critically acclaimed Boston Globe story about Anthony Pledger, all I could think about was Jimmie. Jimmie is a violent offender — a sanitized way of saying he is a murderer and a rapist — serving a life sentence in a maximum-security pri … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 2 years ago

Stories behind bars: The power and pitfalls of “emotional truths”

hen I began reading Evan Allen’s powerful, critically acclaimed Boston Globe story about Anthony Pledger, all I could think about was Jimmie. Jimmie is a violent offender — a sanitized way of saying he is a murderer and a rapist — serving a life sentence in a maximum-security pri … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 2 years ago

A “story-keeping” project helps people heal

n 2001, hospice nurse Dottie Kluttz started practicing “story medicine.” She’d sit with patients nearing the end of their lives, turn on an audio recorder and ask them questions about themselves. “I believe the person dying, who is the storyteller, wants his story told, wants to … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 2 years ago

The U.S. Supreme Court leak: Resisting the erasure of human rights

friend came to the house on a recent evening with all he needed in his grocery tote. He took over my kitchen and let me chatter as he made a remarkable dish: Tender pork medallions with rosemary, prunes and dried apricots, served with sautéed sweet potatoes, all drizzled with a b … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 2 years ago

Award season 2022 continued: The Pulitzer Prizes

tand-out journalism produced last year was honored in the release of the 2022 Pulitzer Prizes, celebrating the best of the craft and affirming the importance of serious, creative journalism in chaotic times. It’s not the first time in history that called on journalists to witness … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 2 years ago

Writing about the unthinkable pain of child suicides

he subjects that draw author, lecturer and essayist Andrew Solomon are never easy or light: Racial bias, gender and sexual identity, the changing definitions of family and, perhaps most notably, mental health. His 2012 book “Far From the Tree,” which illuminated the stories of fa … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 2 years ago

2022 Power of Narrative: The matrix of editor, reporter and story

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is one of five posts from the 2022 Power of Narrative conference at Boston University. Read Ellen Barry on first-person narratives, Lizzie Johnson on deadline narratives, Debbie Cenziper on investigative narratives, and Beth Macy and Martha Bebinger on coverin … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 2 years ago

2022 Power of Narrative: Expert advice on covering drug addiction

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is one of five posts from the 2022 Power of Narrative conference at Boston University. Read Ellen Barry on first-person narratives, Lizzie Johnson on deadline narratives and Debbie Cenziper on investigative narratives. staple of journalism is coverage of the r … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 2 years ago

2022 Power of Narrative: Debbie Cenziper on how reporting and writing feed each other

Editor’s note: This is one of five posts from the 2022 Power of Narrative conference at Boston University. For other takeaways, see Ellen Barry on first-person narratives and Lizzie Johnson on deadline narratives. n a career that has earned multiple awards, including a Pulitzer P … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 2 years ago

Book bans: An assault on curiosity

uring summers of my childhood, a highlight was the twice-monthly visit by the bookmobile. Our small village had no formal public library at the time — we weren’t blessed with one of the 1,600-plus Carnegie Libraries that were planted around the U.S. at the turn of the 20th centur … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 2 years ago

2022 Power of Narrative: Lizzie Johnson on questions that shape deadline narratives

Editor’s note: This is the second of five posts from the 2022 Power of Narrative conference at Boston University. The first post features New York Times reporter Ellen Barry with tips on first-person narratives. t first glance, it would be easy to dismiss Lizzie Johnson as too yo … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 2 years ago

2022 Power of Narrative: Ellen Barry on inserting yourself into the story

Editor’s note: This is the first of four posts on the 2022 Power of Narrative conference at Boston University. ew York Times reporter Ellen Barry built her reputation for rock-solid work as a foreign correspondent in Moscow, New Delhi and London. She came back to the U.S. to repo … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 2 years ago

Award season 1: A peek behind the scenes at some narrative winners

t’s that season. Not erratic spring, but the reliable roll-out of journalism awards, aka a free education in the best of this work and how it’s done. You can roll your eyes at the glut of awards given in the profession — and there are more than a lot. But no amount can adequately … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 2 years ago

Word play: when clarity and creativity merge

ne of my engineer brothers often pesters me about the thicket that is the English language. Silent or paired letters that defy logic: psychic, knave, climb. Words that have letters that seem, upon consideration, extraneous: sock, aardvark. Letter combinations that shrug at phonet … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 2 years ago

What a modern reading of “The Canterbury Tales” can teach us

ore decades ago than I care to count, I was assigned to read “The Canterbury Tales” for a high school English class. That was before email and texting reduced the English language to rubble, and yet I still found it hard going. That is, until my mom, who majored in English at the … | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 2 years ago

Lessons in good writing from the love of a good dog

n most mornings the little brown dog could be found at the foot of the bed, often on his back with his hind legs spread and his front paws bent at the joint. That’s rest. Good rest. And better rest than my wife Melissa and I often got — because, in the hours before daybreak, […] | Continue reading


@niemanstoryboard.org | 2 years ago