From the Editor

#1 rule of pitching: Study the publication

Researching the basics of the site you're pitching to — story length, purpose and tone — reveals respect for the work of reporting

By Jacqui Banaszynski • September 25, 2020

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Strictly Q&A

Wisdom from Melissa Fay Greene about deep reporting on sensitive subjects

Her Atlantic story following the fate of adopted Romanian orphans delves into science, psychology and the tricky shoals of parenthood

By Bonnie Miller Rubin • September 23, 2020

Story Annotations

How Reveal investigated the systemic abuse of America’s caregivers

An investigative series exposed the entrenched practice of exploiting care workers for profit, giving silenced and underpaid caregivers a voice

By Carly Stern • September 22, 2020

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Strictly Q&A

How limitations — COVID, budgets, access and more — can spark fresh ideas

By Kristen Chin
September 17, 2020

From coaching camera skills to honoring drone laws, the lifestyles production unit at GBH in Boston chases creative documentary work

One Great Moment

“They told me their stories, gave them to me for keeping, which I did, always listening, always remembering.”

By Jacqui Banaszynski
September 15, 2020

From the novel "The Water Dancer" by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Story Annotations

What challenged Andrea Pitzer to write what she calls her best work ever

By Cheryl Katz
September 10, 2020

A harrowing trip to the far Arctic linked history, the climate and personal trauma to reveal beauty and pain as inseparable, and the Arctic as a love song

Strictly Q&A

Introducing “The Pivot,” in which journalists find their way through industry chaos

By Julia Shipley
September 9, 2020

National Magazine Award winner Chris Jones loses his job and his marriage, so writes his way to Mars

From the Editor

7 Fatal Flaws of Story Pitches

By Jacqui Banaszynski
September 3, 2020

How to identify common mistakes that get in the way of landing that big idea

Story Annotations

Economic Hardship Reporting Project seeks story pitches that personalize poverty

By Carly Stern
September 2, 2020

"Mine your life," says managing director David Wallis; think about what you’re an expert in and share that story

Strictly Q&A

How reporting through time and place reveals character

By Trevor Pyle
August 28, 2020

ESPN's Wright Thompson returns to an old subject — Michael Jordan — and finds a fresh story in the haunted soil of his history

Strictly Q&A

One cold case murder. Two narrative forms.

By Chip Scanlan
August 26, 2020

A magazine writer and a documentary filmmaker discuss how storytelling platforms shaped their coverage of the same cold case hate murder

Strictly Q&A

How a high school journalist geared up to cover protests in Portland, Oregon

By Lisa Grace Lednicer
August 20, 2020

Eddy Binford-Ross provided nightly eye-witness coverage of historic, and sometimes violent, clashes between police and protestors

Personal Essays

Rewriting the “hero’s journey” to fit a feminine narrative

By Madeline Bodin
August 19, 2020

A writer on a hunt to understand classic story structure ponders politics, movies and her grandmother's life, and searches for a journey of their own

Strictly Q&A

Two veteran newswomen learn podcasting to retell the story of women’s suffrage

By Katherine Lanpher
August 18, 2020

Award-winning journalists Ellen Goodman and Lynn Sherr take a deep and intimate dive into the history of the 19th Amendment in "She Votes!"

Story Annotations

Bearing witness inside a funeral home at the pitch of the COVID pandemic

By Trevor Pyle
August 14, 2020

A team from Vanity Fair paints an intimate portrait of death and horror — and a staff determined to meet them with dignity and humanity

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