Jacqui Banaszynski retired as the endowed Knight Chair in Editing at the Missouri School of Journalism in 2017, is editor at Nieman Storyboard, and a faculty fellow at the Poynter Institute. She won the 1988 Pulitzer Prize in feature writing for “AIDS in the Heartland,” a series about a gay farm couple facing AIDS, and was a finalist for the 1986 Pulitzer in international reporting for her account of the sub-Saharan famine.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Last week and this, we’re offering support to editors and educators for how to guide writers through an effective nut graf — however you spell it and whatever you call it. Go to the homepage for recent articles … Read more
EDITOR’S NOTE: Last week and this, we’re offering support to editors and educators for how to guide writers through an effective nut graf — however you spell it and whatever you call it. See earlier pieces from writing coach and … Read more
Here is a self-editing origin story: I was back from my first truly big reporting assignment, which was to cover the 1984-85 famine in the sub-Sahara. I was exhausted, emotional about what I had seen, and … Read more
A brief anecdote in a Denver Post story about Pulitzer Prize winner Jim Sheeler describes how a new reporter was seated next to him in the newsroom of the Rocky Mountain News. When he introduced himself, … Read more
Today is the 76th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. That’s not a notable number in the rather arbitrary realm of anniversary stories. But the event itself just seems to gain profundity as time goes on. Maybe that’s because … Read more
Some years ago, I spent three weeks at a mountain-climbing base camp in the interior of Antarctica. The reporting trip was supposed to be a two-day in-and-out, but a dispute over airplane fuel kept a motley crew of us … Read more
Forgive the movie reference, especially if you long ago ditched the Mel Gibson fan club. But a moment early in “The Patriot” offers apt wisdom when struggling with a story pitch. The short version: Colonial settler … Read more
Even the most dramatic news about the journalism is seldom a surprise. Budgets are cut. Awards are given. Veterans retire or are bought out. Book contracts are signed. But collecting a sampling and studying what came before can offer … Read more
Meet Bethany Grace Howe, above. I met her a little over 10 years ago when she came to the Missouri School of Journalism as a nontraditional graduate student. “Nontraditional” essentially meant that she was older than most of her … Read more
If you’re not a fan of “A River Runs Through It,” it can only be because you haven’t read it yet. Norman Maclean’s 1976 novella of family dynamics plays out on Montana’s Blackfoot River and is an enduring … Read more