DeGregory chronicles the efforts of a 13-year-old devout Christian girl and her backstage mom to make the girl a pop star. DeGregory deftly writes for both believer and nonbeliever: Her words can be taken ironically or straight. She provides the … Read more
Franklin leads his readers through the grisly, tense terrain of brain surgery, moment by moment. We experience the story as if it were live reporting: Franklin tells it in present tense, sound by sound, image by image. The pop, pop, … Read more
In this final installment of the Times race series, a reporter turns her attention to another journalistic effort to address race in America. The Akron Beacon Journal won a Pulitzer Prize for its series exploring the racial attitudes of its … Read more
This piece is about the making of “The Corner,” a TV series about black drug addicts, told from their perspective. The script was based on a book by a white former (narrative) journalist, David Simon of The Sun. The director, … Read more
Holmes spent a year reporting this story about two drill sergeants—one black and one white—in a company at Fort Knox, Ky. The piece chronicles their jockeying for power, advancement and recognition. The men’s candor is remarkable—their comments about each other … Read more
Stabler’s series about a black music prodigy is well-reported and -written. We like the rich detail, the elegant descriptions, deft characterizations. What seems left out are more insights into why the 16-year-old, Sam Johnson, has such a hard time. Stabler … Read more
In this final, sad chapter of the series, a West African immigrant, Adama Camara, scrubs toilets and wipes tables for 16 hours a day. The world is a grimy, dreary, bone-tired place. There’s too much work for too little gain, … Read more
In this second installment of Hull’s series, you’ll find this small example of how even a newspaper article (the voice of which is usually straight and communitarian) can include irony: “As Saul and Nallely talk about which Starbucks puts the … Read more
The subject of this profile is not like most of us. Is she crazy? A hustler? Or does she know things we can’t? We need the writer to make sense of it all, to guide us through the tale with … Read more
Gurnett’s attitude in this piece is curious, compassionate, never melodramatic. Gurnett achieves "narrative distance," a detachment from her subject, even as she seeks to understand him. Her writing has more voice than we often find in smaller papers: She uses … Read more
