"The Fiddler in the Subway," by Gene Weingarten [Washington Post]. I’ve never met him, but Gene Weingarten is my biggest journalism crush. (Are you reading this Gene? My cheeks are all red.) His stories are just so damn smart, and complex, and gorgeous.
"Into the Lonely Quiet," by Eli Saslow [Washington Post.] The best newspaper story I’ve read in the last five years that wasn’t written by Gene Weingarten.
"For Their Own Good"and its follow-up, "100 Years Later and It’s Still Hell" by Ben Montgomery at the Tampa Bay Times. For the marriage of investigative and narrative elements, for courageous reporting, for elegant and muscular writing, for finding storytelling details in agonizing, hard-won interviews and in long-buried documents in musty basements. For Ben, who gave a damn before anyone else did. For all those lost, dead boys, who now have been brought back up out of their graves.
