How F. Scott Fitzgerald guided the hand and aspirations of a newspaper...
Early in my career, while working in Minnesota as a reporter for the St. Paul Pioneer Press, I fell in love with F. Scott Fitzgerald, the city’s most famous native writer. It may have had something to...
View ArticleA confluence of hard news that demands uncomfortable considerations
All news is the stuff of history. But some deserves more than a dusty archive to be stumbled upon by a research scholar. It is an immediate marker that demands be heeded for the ages. We are living in...
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The challenge of writing a life in two lines
On May 23, 2020, (May 24 in print), the New York Times landed a daring and historic front page: A wash of overwhelming gray, which jumped to two more gray pages inside the print paper. To mark the...
View Article“They were tired, so tired and still they returned.”
It’s not possible for the everyday reader to know who wrote that sentence. The lead writer who was pulling feeds from several reporters in the field? One of the field reporters who had scratched it in...
View Article“Words are living things. They have personality, point of view, agenda.
When looking for advice, writers shouldn’t be picky; sometimes even a fictional cannibal will serve. When NBC aired a series about Hannibal Lecter, the psychiatrist who moonlights as a serial killer...
View ArticleThe challenge of precision: As descriptors evolve, the press must be clear
The U.S. Supreme Court this week (June 17, 2020) ruled that the Civil Rights act of 1964 prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, which the majority said were...
View ArticleThe route to a Pulitzer in opinion writing: rigorous reporting
It’s unlikely there was much money riding on Jeff Gerritt to win the 2020 Pulitzer Prize in editorial writing. His newspaper, the Palestine Herald-Press in Texas is tiny: daily circulation about 3,500....
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Reporting the emotionally sensitive story through trauma and physical distance
As a reporter for the Metro section of the Los Angeles Times, Angel Jennings explores issues affecting residents in South Los Angeles. Throughout 2019, she was one of the primary bylines on stories...
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“Violence of the light miraculous.”
In a work-related Zoom meeting recently, a colleague referred to Reddit as “lightning in a bottle.” I’m not entirely sure what that meant, despite her best efforts to explain it to my dial-up mind, but...
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What crisis reporting can teach about better sports reporting
Most 20-something sports journalists don’t find themselves covering something as raw and emotional as the aftermath of one of the deadliest natural disasters in American history. But here was Benjamin...
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“His conversation is so delightfully sauced …”
It was the verb in this sentence in “Braiding Sweetgrass,” a reissued book of nature essays by Robin Wall Kimmerer, that captivated me. It’s a strong, active verb, so the sentence leaps where similar...
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Rejecting the simplified news narrative
While reading the news in 2017, filmmaker Erin Lee Carr first saw the “very wide, intense eyes” of Michelle Carter. She looked like a “deer in headlights,” Carr said. At the time, Carter was on trial...
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Navigating ethics, culture and safety to immerse in immigration and Covid
At first glance, there are few frills or fireworks in “Tatiana’s Luck,” Hannah Dreier ‘s profile of an immigrant living in a crowded New Jersey house stalked by COVID-19. In the Washington Post...
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Four questions mine for bottomless wisdom
During the 15 years that Chip Scanlan taught writing workshops at the Poynter Institute, he wrote a popular column called “Chip on Your Shoulder.” Searching Poynter’s archives takes some work, but you...
View ArticleHow to become a “five-tool” storyteller
Major League Baseball, that beloved summer sport, returns to a shortened season later this month. Or at least it is scheduled to, but as with all things in the time of coronavirus, schedules are...
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“… between broad statistical data and intimate personal disclosure.”
As the daily read of crucial issues — racial injustice, the pandemic, the political divide, the battered environment, the brutal economy — expands and deepens, I keep looking for those moments of...
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Fashion reporting as cultural criticism
When President Donald Trump staged a controversial Fourth of July celebration at Mount Rushmore, a sea of journalists covered the show. Among them: Washington Post fashion critic Robin Givhan. But...
View ArticleIf no one reads the news, did it happen?
The self-checkout line at my funky neighborhood grocery was wide open, but I waited for the old-fashioned line, with a checker and a bagger. I don’t like to weigh my own Honeycrisps any more than I’ve...
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What happens when a superstar novelist is asked to profile a superstar actress?
When I let myself indulge in celebrity profiles, I expect an enjoyable mix of gossip, gawking and who’s who. The successful mix usually includes a broken marriage, a rift with a parent or a glimpse...
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How protest songs echo — and sometimes lead — the stories of our times
On a warm spring night in 1974, I was an Ohio University student reporter amid a riot. Not a riot against repression or inequality or injustice or the Vietnam War, not that sort of riot. Rather, the...
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