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Dear Storyboard community,
It's official: I'm thrilled to be your new Storyboard editor.
Thanks again to the Nieman Foundation team, and all of you, for the warm welcome over these past few weeks as guest editor.
Many of you might know me from Longreads, but when I left a few years ago, I was eager to immerse myself in other forms of storytelling — including fiction, podcasting, songwriting, and (as it turned out) TikTok. With Ursa Story Company, authors Dawnie Walton and Deesha Philyaw and I wanted to introduce people to short stories through audio and short-form video.
As with any industry, there's always a question of how to break in. Many fiction writers can make their name by writing short stories, which can lead to an agent, and then a book deal. For us, it's been gratifying to highlight both established writers and emerging voices who are publishing some of their first pieces.
Which brings me to this question:
Who gave you your first shot?
In the world of journalism, it can be just as tough to land a break, or find an editor or producer who will take a chance on you. Or, maybe, you took matters into your own hands and took a chance on yourself. (Ryan Teague Beckwith's newsletter, Your First Byline, is full of these stories.)
I'd like to ask the community: How did you land your first big reporting project or narrative feature? And what advice do you have for those starting out?
Send me an email (mark_armstrong@harvard.edu) and I'll feature your answers in a future newsletter.
How to convince an editor or producer to go long
Will James, an audio documentary producer for KUOW in Seattle, helped create serial podcasts including 2024's "Lost Patients," about the mental health care crisis in Washington state, in partnership with the Seattle Times.
He wanted to find a way to give complicated stories more space, without having to create an entirely new podcast each time. So he and his colleagues are producing longform audio documentaries that can run as standalone episodes. Their latest is "The Housing First Approach," a 50-minute piece about homelessness that ran on KUOW's Soundside podcast.
"The idea is that, in this environment, listeners are drowning in discrete bits of information and are looking for voices to guide them through it," James told me.
He also shared advice for those who want to make a pitch for more space and time to work on a big project:
Many editors have internalized the idea that long, deeply reported pieces are self-indulgent pursuits that mostly benefit the reporters. In many newsrooms, these projects are treated as “breaks” or “rewards” for reporters, as in “So-and-so has really been grinding on daily news and deserves a break to work on this passion project…”
First of all: No! Long-term reporting and storytelling projects are difficult as hell and, if done right, will test the limits of any reporter’s skill, patience, and endurance.
To get these ideas past editors, reporters have to show how their project is not a fun diversion for them nor the fulfillment of a personal passion but something crafted to fill the needs of the audience.
Reporters have to make the case that audiences already get so much information in discrete bites, they’re confused, and they’re crying out for reporting that helps them synthesize all of it. And the reporter needs to demonstrate that their project will fill that need — and that they have a plan to deliver.
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Links of note
• Vogue Party: Edith Zimmerman documents her life in illustrated stories. Some installments, like this one, talk about her journey from writer (The Hairpin, New York Times Magazine, GQ) to artist. I asked her how she writes and draws them: "I don’t decide much (or anything) beforehand. (It’s really a daily journal!) But then I’ll delete extraneous stuff if it starts to later look like something I might want to publish. And I ask my friend Logan [Sachon] to help me edit it too." Her advice for aspiring artists: "Just start! Sometimes 'bad' art is better than 'good' art. It can be funnier, among other things. So don’t be afraid!"
• Novelist Rebecca Makkai writes about the dangers of "withholding" in storytelling. In this case she's talking about fiction, but I think this raises important questions for narrative nonfiction as well:
We can define narrative withholding as any time the reader is not filled in on important information known by the narrator or the point-of-view character, in a timely manner.
This absolutely does not mean that you need to fill us in endlessly on every possible detail. If you say that someone sat on the couch but don’t tell me the color of the couch, that is not withholding—largely because it doesn’t matter.
Here’s the litmus test: If two readers could come away with wildly different guesses for what’s happening, and if those guesses would change the meaning of the story, you’ve got a problem.
• “It was complicated at first just to reach people. Some sources were easier to contact than others, and with internet problems in Haiti, some days I couldn’t connect with anyone at all.” Fact-checker Jameson Francisque explained his process while working with reporter Jacob Kushner on Long Lead's feature story, "An Unnatural Disaster,” about the city of Canaan, which emerged after the 2010 earthquake in Haiti.
• ESPN's 30 for 30 Podcasts will be accepting story pitches at the upcoming On Air Fest in Brooklyn on Feb. 21. Preeti Varathan, head of 30 for 30 Audio, will also be conducting a virtual AMA on Feb. 6 on how to pitch and what they're looking for.
• Over at Nieman Reports, Gabe Bullard (Nieman Fellow, Class of 2015) writes about the classic reporter’s notebook, which may be on the road to obsolescence. If you have a reporter’s notebook with a special history of its own, share your stories and photos with us.
Thank you for reading,
Mark Armstrong
Editor
Nieman Storyboard
Bluesky: @niemanstoryboard.org
