Articles

Fake news and true facts, and the licenses taken in pursuit of narrative

Fake news and true facts, and the licenses taken in pursuit of narrative

All journalism is a kind of fiction, one writer argues, because of the intercession of the reporter; as our attitudes on truth and nonfiction have grown more atomized, the most…
May 18, 2017
David L. Ulin

“This will happen so fast that one night he will be in the backyard, believing it a perfect place, and by the next night he will have changed and the yard as he imagined it will be gone, and this era of his life will be behind him forever.”

This famous piece by Susan Orlean is one of those stories where it’s hard to pick just one great sentence. You find one, and then another, and then another —…
May 17, 2017
Kari Howard
Literary journalism gets some love, from "Hiroshima" to Shane Bauer's prison exposé

Literary journalism gets some love, from “Hiroshima” to Shane Bauer’s prison exposé

A weekly roundup of some favorite things, for your reading and listening pleasure
May 12, 2017
Kari Howard

The roadblocks, and the dangers, for investigative journalists in the Arab world

As the Arab Spring ushered in less openness rather than more, a Jordan-based group supports reporters taking chances in this fledgling movement
May 11, 2017
Abby Sewell

“There’s no room for hate in ice cream,” Dennis liked to remind himself.

Why is it great? We annotated this wonderful story last year, and the focus of the annotation was the rarity of humor in longform. This line makes me laugh even…
May 10, 2017
Kari Howard
5(ish) Questions: Josh O'Kane and "The Ballad of Fogarty's Cove"

5(ish) Questions: Josh O’Kane and “The Ballad of Fogarty’s Cove”

The Globe and Mail reporter talks about his Nova Scotia story exploring the love of a place, and the sorrow over leaving when it cannot sustain you
May 9, 2017
Kari Howard

“She was beautiful but when she tasted the water from the glass on her lectern she smiled sadly as if it were bitter for, in spite of her civil zeal, she had a taste for the melancholy – for the smell of orange rinds and wood smoke – that was extraordinary.”

Why is it great? When I moved back to New England last year after nearly a lifetime away, John Cheever’s debut novel about a quirky New England family was the…
May 4, 2017
Kari Howard
5(ish) Questions: Legendary editor Gene Roberts reflects on a lifetime in journalism

5(ish) Questions: Legendary editor Gene Roberts reflects on a lifetime in journalism

As filmmakers seek funding for a documentary about the newsman who transformed The Philadelphia Inquirer in the 1970s and '80s, he talks about how his reporters zigged instead of zagged…
May 3, 2017
Julie Schwietert Collazo
How Michelle Garcia told the story of Juárez, a city lost to violence, through its dogs

How Michelle Garcia told the story of Juárez, a city lost to violence, through its dogs

The Al Jazeera America piece, reported with Mexican reporter Ignacio Alvarado Alvarez, haunts with its indelible portrait of pets paying the price when a terrorized place goes feral
May 2, 2017
Carolina A. Miranda
5(ish) Questions: Nathan Thornburgh talks mind-blowing drugs and Anthony Bourdain

5(ish) Questions: Nathan Thornburgh talks mind-blowing drugs and Anthony Bourdain

The co-founder of the unapologetically longform travel-food-politics site Roads & Kingdoms talks about teaming up with the chef-raconteur and reporting while under the influence of the hallucinogen ayahuasca
April 27, 2017
Davis Harper