Putting the ‘I’ in storytelling

In reporting about psilocybin, Robert Sanchez reveals his own story. Plus: True Story Award, Roy Peter Clark, and the Liang-Zhou Nieman Fellowship

by Mark Armstrong

Image for Putting the ‘I’ in storytelling — 5280 magazine illustration by Armando Veve

June 27, 2025

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Dear Storyboard community,

Long before I started Longreads — and got a decade-plus education in narrative journalism — my traditional J-school and newspaper training taught me that I should never make myself part of the story.

But what I hadn't yet grasped about journalism is that that's an impossible task. We insert ourselves into every story we touch. Stories are built on top of a human connection with our subjects, and that includes our biases and our own lived experiences.

On top of that, the best narrative nonfiction is guided by a strong voice and perspective — we as writers have the power to decide how a story begins and ends. Our fingerprints are all over our work, even if we never write the word "I."

As a reader, I appreciate the different ways first-person can show up — in memoir, essays, and feature writing. As Erika Hayasaki shared with me during our Nieman Storyboard podcast conversation, she even named her newsletter "The Reported Essay" as a way to spotlight and celebrate reporting that includes context from our own lives.

One recent example comes from Robert Sanchez of 5280 magazine in Denver. In reporting his latest feature story — about scientists, doctors, and entrepreneurs who are experimenting with psilocybin (aka magic mushrooms) to treat cancer patients and people suffering from trauma — Sanchez embarked on his own experiment with microdosing. As he told me:

I’m known around my magazine for abstaining from alcohol and drugs. Early in my reporting, my editor, Spencer Campbell, made a joke about me doing a macro psilocybin dose. He made it clear that he was joking, and I had no interest in using psilocybin as part of the story. But as I spent a month or so reporting, I was meeting all these doctors and researchers and in-home healers who talked so highly about the drug that I figured I could baby-step my way into this with microdosing.

I’d come off a really bad 12-month stretch of my life: my wife lost her job, my childhood best friend died by suicide, one of my closest friends (and my former editor) was laid off from our magazine, and the magazine was sold. I’m generally a happy and grateful person, but I felt rudderless and angry. I was lashing out at people who were important in my life, and I didn’t want to live in that bitterness. In a lot of ways, from a very selfish perspective, I didn’t have anything to lose with microdosing. At the very least, I could report and write about my experience, which I knew would be interesting to readers, regardless of how psilocybin worked (or didn’t work) in my life. As a journalist, I want to inform readers and demystify subjects for them. Using psilocybin as part of the story seemed like a good spot to do that. In the end, it turned out to be a win-win for me and for readers.

I've followed Robert and his work on Twitter/X for many years, and I'm grateful for his openness in sharing his journey. It added more clarity to his reporting on people like Teresa Anne Volgenau, who was battling Stage 3 cancer and took part in a clinical study on the use of psilocybin to treat pain and anxiety in cancer patients.

Sanchez, who also teaches journalism at the University of Denver, still urges his own students to think carefully about how and when to use first person — when it deepens a story, and when it distracts:

I see so many young journalists who want to write just first person. [They're] very capable writers who are so deathly afraid to do real reporting that they focus entirely on first person. … They're nervous. For my students, I'm like, “first person is off limits.” Because you need to know how to report. You need to know how to write about someone else's life, you need to know how to ask questions.

Links of note

Four winners of the 2025 True Story Award have been announced in Bern, Switzerland. In the "Storytelling" category, Philippe Broussard won for "Looking for the Mysterious Photographer Who Snapped the Nazis," published in Le Monde; The "Research" award went to Sara Abu Shadi for "The Russian Trap," published in Masrawy; and the "Impact" award went to Alex Perry with "Revelations of Atrocities," published in Politico Europe, and Murad Higazy with "The Argany Peninsula," published in Mada Masr. (Hat-tip Jacqui Banaszynski.)
"Editing starts with the writer, and my advice to writers would be to take the book or proposal as far as you possibly can yourself before querying or turning it into your agent — edit, sharpen, get feedback from trusted readers, repeat." Author Lincoln Michel interviews his book editor, Sean deLone, about the evolving role of an editor in book publishing.
The Poynter Institute has announced the creation of a new faculty position named in honor of longtime writing coach and author Roy Peter Clark. Poynter is launching a $500,000 fundraising campaign for the full-time faculty member to create and lead new writing and editing programs. We're proud to have featured Clark's work in Nieman Storyboard over the years — read more from him in our archives.
The Nieman Foundation for Journalism and the New York-based Endeavor Foundation Inc. have announced the launch of the Liang-Zhou Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University. Starting with a $1.5 million endowment gift from the Endeavor Foundation, the Liang-Zhou Nieman Fellowship Fund will support journalists selected for the Nieman program who work in or are from China, Taiwan and Hong Kong. The Liang-Zhou Fund honors the memory of the influential Chinese political theorist, philosopher and journalist Liang Qichao and his eldest grandchild, Zhou Nianci.
And finally, if you're in the NYC area on Wednesday, July 9, join me and my Ursa podcast colleagues for a night of live storytelling at the Center for Fiction in Brooklyn. Authors Deesha Philyaw, Dawnie Walton, and Kiese Laymon will be joined onstage by Lawrence Burney ("No Sense in Wishing") and Carrie R. Moore ("Make Your Way Home").