Nut grafs: Overused, misused — or merely misunderstood?
Editor’s note: This week we tackle the never-ending debate over what is called, in journalese, the “nut graf” — that so-what paragraph or section that pulls out of the news or narrative to provide...
View ArticleA nut graf by any other name might taste sweeter ~ and be more digestible
Editor’s note: This week we tackle the never-ending debate over what is called, in journalese, the “nut graf” — that so-what paragraph or section that pulls out of the news or narrative to provide...
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A nutcracker suite
Editor’s note: This week we tackle the never-ending debate over what is called, in journalese, the “nut graf” — that so-what paragraph or section that pulls out of the news or narrative to provide...
View ArticleNewsroom Ode #5: Pity the poor publisher
EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the fIfth in a series of Monday odes that chronicle the legacy newsroom. Each is written from different first-person perspective. Together they create the mumbled narrative of a...
View ArticleA prescient voice speaks for the Earth
Aldo Leopold’s “A Sand County Almanac” turns 70 this year. At a time when writing about ecological emergency is emotionally and politically fraught, the “Almanac” is a balm of wisdom and reverence...
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For the love of analog in a digital world
Every August when I was young, my mother would take me to the store to buy some back-to-school notebooks. Maybe some pencils. Sometimes even a plastic pencil sharpener. This was a long time ago, but I...
View ArticleNewsroom Ode #6: CEO, In the Catbird Seat
EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the sixth in a series of Monday odes that chronicle the legacy newsroom. Each is written from different first-person perspective. Together they create the mumbled narrative of a...
View ArticleMore on nut grafs: A sweet addendum
EDITOR’S NOTE: Storyboard recently revisited the long-standing debate over the ‘nut graf’ — variably called the summary nut, the billboard, the transition, the significance graf, the so-what passage,...
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“I work like a watchmaker or an old-fashioned silversmith: one eye screwed...
As journalists, we strive for terse, pithy sentences. Then comes this sprawling description of writing in which the writer becomes a silversmith, watchmaker, weaver and, ultimately, a chemist. Using...
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Forget the chocolates. Tell a story instead
I‘m not much on Valentine’s Day. I liked the grade school tradition of exchanging Valentine’s Day cards with classmates. (Is that just a U.S. thing?) Each of us was supposed to have enough cards for...
View ArticleNewsroom Ode #7: Desperation calls the consultant
EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the seventh in a series of Monday odes that chronicle the legacy newsroom. Each is written from different first-person perspective. Together they create the mumbled narrative of...
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What the “Insect Apocalypse” reveals about faulty human memory
For several years, I have been captivated by a porpoise. The cetacean in question is the vaquita, a Mexican marine mammal that is shy, adorable, and totally screwed. The reasons for its imminent...
View Article“I’m thinking longer term, in geologic time, doing just what I can each day...
When I encountered this sentence, I took it personally. I like being brilliant. I like it so much that I don’t write as much as I should. It’s uncomfortable to start writing, to try to flesh out a...
View ArticleCan a soundtrack ease you through a story?
A key character in a story I was struggling with was a woman with a broken heart. She’d been cheated on by the man she had married, but continued to love him even after he went to prison for attempted...
View ArticleNewsroom Ode #8: Podium pontifications
EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the eighth in a series of Monday odes that chronicle the legacy newsroom. Each is written from a different first-person perspective. Together they create the mumbled narrative of...
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Building a museum with jars of dirt, and building stories from the ground up
One day last October, Cara Solomon sat alone in an empty field in Alabama, the unmarked site of a lynching. She wasn’t carrying a reporter’s notebook or thinking yet about how she might write about...
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Raw first stories from the Appalachian Trail
When I first discovered that Earl Shaffer — the first man acknowledged to have hiked the entire 2,200-mile Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine — lived nearby, I went through his brother John...
View ArticleNewsroom Ode #9: Echoes from an empty desk
EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the ninth and penultimate in a series of Monday odes that chronicle the legacy newsroom. Each is written from a different first-person perspective. Together they create the...
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THE PITCH: Wired’s exec editor seeks stories that reveal all faces of technology
Maria Streshinsky, executive editor of Wired, wouldn’t say the magazine has grown skeptical about the promise of technology. But compared to the optimism of past editorial regimes, she and...
View ArticleNewsroom Ode #10: A loyalist’s last lament
EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the tenth and last in a series of Monday odes that chronicle the legacy newsroom. Each is written from different first-person perspective. Together they create the mumbled...
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