Below are Nieman Storyboard’s top 10 stories, in terms of pageviews and in reverse drumroll order, for 2020. Later this week we’ll include a few of our personal favorites.
10 - Navigating ethics, culture and safety to immerse in immigration and Covid
Published: July 8, 2020 | Pulitzer Prize winner Hannah Dreier writes an "unusually quiet story" that presented challenges of access, health risks and structure.
By Trevor Pyle
9 - Where writers write when they can't write where they like to write
Published: April 29, 2020 | The pandemic-related shutdown of habitual writing refuges and routines have left writers cobbling new options.
By Matt Tullis
8 - A Writer's Survival Guide: Tips for defying distraction
Published: April 23, 2020 | One moderately productive, relatively-sane freelancer’s approach to writing through a crisis.
By Kim Cross
7- A religion reporter profiles a charismatic community drawn to a "miracle Bible"
Published: April 14, 2020 | Slate's Ruth Graham leans on local newspaper reports, expertise in religion coverage and a history in the evangelical church to write oil, faith and politics.
By Trevor Pyle
6 - 7 Fatal Flaws of Story Pitches
Published: September 3, 2020 | How to identify common mistakes that get in the way of landing that big idea.
By Jacqui Banaszynski
5 - The shift of "branches" in a sentence creates shifts in mood and meaning
Published: February 21, 2020 | A writing guru shows how a single, long sentence reveals the power of an overlooked writing tool: the placement of the main clause.
By Roy Peter Clark
4 - What we can learn about writing and life in a graduation speech sent from a distance
Published: March 26, 2020 | A letter from Roy Peter Clark to the class of 2020 says coronavirus can remind us of "one of the greatest gifts of all: A great story."
By Jacqui Banaszynski
3 - "They were tired, so tired and still they returned."
Published: June 11, 2020 | In this One Great Moment post, we highlight a line by staff at The Washington Post. It’s the kind of line in a fast-moving round-up story that pulls out of the cascade of vignettes for a moment, and provides a welcome pause.
By Jacqui Banaszynski
2 - Four hundred years of harsh history delivered in 8,000 unflinching words
Published: January 17, 2020 | Nikole Hannah-Jones anchors "The 1619 Project" in the New York Times with a "reported essay" that weaves historical events and personal experience.
By Lisa Grace Lednicer
1 - A poet's distanced farewell to his students is an anthem for the times
Published: May 12, 2020 | This professor moved his poetry class online because of coronavirus. As the semester ended, he wanted to leave his students with “something more substantial than goodbye.”
By Gerald P. Costanzo
