#1 rule of pitching: Study the publication
Editor’s Note: This is the first in an occasional series of posts that elaborate on some of the most basic weaknesses in story pitching. You can find other resources about pitching, including examples...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Narrative of Oregon town’s hellish wildfire experience is a lesson in...
This past Labor Day, three reporters in Salem, Oregon were enjoying the holiday weekend. They’d done a good job preparing stories in advance so they wouldn’t have to scramble the next day to fill their...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How a viral tweet led to a sensitive story on family, race and America
It was the kind of tweet a lot of people would thumb past with no more than a quick “like.” But when Jaweed Kaleem read about a one-woman Black Lives Matter protest in small-town America during this...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Pitching a new editor: Don’t be too clever
I was re-reading an old essay of mine that I’d sent out nine times but could never sell. As I finished it, I thought, “Damn, I like this essay. Why did no one want it?” I decided to send it out one...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The struggle to define cinematic writing
I’ve been struggling to find the right term for the nonfiction writing I most admire. Whether written by Joan Didion, David Grann, Susan Orlean, Héctor Tobar, Isabel Wilkerson, or Gene Weingarten,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
An intimate narrative from inside a COVID-afflicted nursing home — reported...
Few writers can captivate an audience with a more than 16,000-word dive into the inner workings of a nursing home. But Katie Engelhart’s exploration of America’s first COVID hot-spot — the Life Care...
View Article#2 rule of pitching: Respect submission protocols
You have a great idea. You’ve vetted it with trusted friends. You’ve done your pre-reporting — or at least some. You are jazzed and ready to pitch, and have a publication in your sights. Then you hit...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How a reporter tracked good intentions to problematic consequences in family...
An offhand remark by a source caught Stephanie Clifford’s interest. More than a year later, the reporter revealed a harrowing problem previously obscured in the murk of the family court system. The...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Reporting beyond the first headlines
On August 23 of this year, Kenosha, Wisconsin, joined the litany of American cities beset by street protests in the wake of the police shooting of a Black man. In this case, a white police officer,...
View ArticleStory roots and consequences
Some years ago, I was involved in the edit of a story about children born to developmentally disabled people. In 1927, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld states’ rights to forcibly sterilize people deemed...
View ArticlePitching the IWMF: Focus on undercovered issues, think big and dare to stretch
EDITOR’S NOTE: This installment of our occasional series The Pitch, we’re highlighting the International Women’s Media Foundation. Read the annotation of a successful project pitch to the IWMF here....
View ArticleClik here to view.
The project pitch that won funding from the International Women’s Media...
EDITOR’S NOTE: This installment of our occasional series The Pitch, we annotate a successful project pitch for funding from the International Women’s Media Foundation. Read an interview with the IWMF...
View ArticleAuthenticity and imagery in songwriting, outlaw country style
Fred introduced me to Jerry Jeff Walker — by that, I mean that Fred sent me home, from the Lone Star State, with two purple CDs, one of which shimmered with a track called “Sangria Wine.” I labeled the...
View Article“His work is a parable …”
Before you think this clause opens to a sentence and story about religion, because it leans on the word “parable,” it doesn’t — unless your embrace of religion, of whatever stripe, grows from a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How the road led out of and back into journalism
It wasn’t that long ago that Anne Christnovitch vowed never to take another job in journalism. It was the spring of 2018. She was the managing editor of the Standard-Examiner in Ogden, Utah — a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The fashion critic of The New York Times sees clothing as an extension of...
As chief fashion critic and director for The New York Times, Vanessa Friedman has written odes to Karl Lagerfeld and Kenzo Takada — major designers who passed this year — and considered the fashion...
View ArticleClik here to view.
What happened when a journalist tracked the origins of the rape evidence kit
Most stories about female inventors simply congratulate women for being as capable as men. But Pagan Kennedy, author, podcast producer and New York Times columnist, thinks we need to move beyond this...
View ArticleClik here to view.
E Pluribus Unnerved
EDITOR’S NOTE: Headlines on a story often change as the story is updated, or is published on different platforms. That apparently is what happened in a New York Times story published Nov. 4, 2020,...
View ArticleWriting history as we live it
It has become a common refrain in these chaotic times: We’re not just reading history; we’re living it. That’s always been true, I suppose, for anyone living at any time. But I expect historians will...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Challenges of sourcing, safety and reporting for narrative in China
By her own admission, New York Times reporter Sui-Lee Wee doesn’t often break news out of China; her beat coverage usually follows the reporting of multiple Chinese articles about the same subject. So...
View Article