One Great Moment

“…just how astonishing this particular moment really is.”

Peter Baker of The New York Times on the indictment of former President Donald J. Trump

By Jacqui Banaszynski • March 31, 2023

The scene outside the Manhattan DA office in New York on March 30, 2023 as a grand jury indicted Former President Donald Trump Jr. on campaign finance violations.

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Narrative News

A guide to clear writing in tangled times

Writing scholar and guru coach Roy Peter Clark captures his best writing advice for "public writers" who have to report messy civic news

By Katharine Gammon • March 31, 2023

Notable Narratives

How a 19th century widow stopped the presses — and pioneered deadline reporting

Miriam Leslie inherited a media empire from her husband, then reinvented it with journalism we take for granted today

By Lauren Kessler • March 29, 2023

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From the Editor

Reaching for tools to summon the Muse

By Jacqui Banaszynski
March 28, 2023

The editor contemplates the unpredictable nature of inspiration on deadline, and the magic of metaphors that surround us

Story Craft

2023 Power of Narrative: The investigation and birth of a personal essay

By Caren Chesler
March 24, 2023

Essayist, poet and author Hillery Stone explores the essay process through the death of a dog and the growth of a tomato plant

One Great Moment

Divining the “fantastical sea creatures” on the political horizon

By Jacqui Banaszynski
March 23, 2023

New York Times chief political analyst Nate Cohn on the possibilities of indictments against Donald J. Trump

From the Editor

Pause before you hit the SEND button

By Jacqui Banaszynski
March 21, 2023

The editor ponders the changing dynamics of reporter-source relationships and what constitutes a "public" exchange

Story Craft

The making of a (born) journalist

By Don Nelson
March 17, 2023

Carl Bernstein of Watergate fame may have been hard-wired to be a reporter but he also worked hard at his craft

Notable Narratives

A doc film that gently unspools surprises

By Line Vaaben
March 17, 2023

Filmmaker Eloisa Diez follows a trans man's journey to create a family of his own ~ and confronts her own storytelling stereotypes

From the Editor

Writing without words

By Jacqui Banaszynski
March 14, 2023

A watercolor workshop offers wisdom about the art and lifetime practice of storytelling in any form

Story Annotations

‘Good versus good’ stories that unravel complex societal problems

By Carly Stern
March 10, 2023

New Yorker writer Nathan Heller follows a year of change in one San Francisco high school in which there was no clear right or wrong

One Great Moment

“…cutting the viewer to the bone.”

By Trevor Pyle
March 7, 2023

Film critic Matt Zoller Seitz on actor Tom Sizemore

Story Annotations

Reconstructing a fractured life and broken system

By Chip Scanlan
March 2, 2023

L.A. Times reporter Thomas Curwen traced the life of one schizophrenia sufferer to tell a bigger story of society's challenges with mental health

One Great Moment

“…the stories it told … were not someone else’s but one larger story of which they, too, were a part.”

By Jacqui Banaszynski
March 1, 2023

By Jacqui Banaszynski As I read Celeste Ng’s most recent novel, I couldn’t help but think of George Orwell’s “1984” or Margaret Atwood’s “A Handmaid’s Tale.” Nor could I avoid echoes to discordant times in real life in recent years. Novelist Celeste Ng… Read More

Personal Essays

Keeping it real in a news reporting class

By Howard Sinker
February 28, 2023

A veteran newspaperman devotes a night of his reporting class to Title IX history, led by three women who fought for equal standing in sports journalism

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