Articles

"Why's This So Good?" No. 102: Michael Brick and "A Hipster Quits Williamsburg"

“Why’s This So Good?” No. 102: Michael Brick and “A Hipster Quits Williamsburg”

This is the first of ten stories Storyboard will post from a new collection honoring Michael Brick [see our 5 Questions on the project], each featuring an introduction by a writer…
May 10, 2016
Wright Thompson
5 Questions with: Ben Montgomery on Michael Brick and "Everyone Leaves Behind a Name"

5 Questions with: Ben Montgomery on Michael Brick and “Everyone Leaves Behind a Name”

Perhaps as much as any modern journalist, Michael Brick brought the style of Ben Hecht’s “A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago” into the 21st century newsroom. Hecht made the…
May 10, 2016
Michael Fitzgerald

“Shoot the picture. Don’t shoot the picture.”

As the 1960s came to an end, America was on the brink of a revolution, with the ascendant counterculture challenging nearly every aspect of American society at home while the…
May 6, 2016
Clara Bingham
From Esquire Classic: Tom Junod on "Missing"

From Esquire Classic: Tom Junod on “Missing”

Tiffany Whitton was last seen on video surveillance footage from a Marietta, Georgia, Walmart one night in September 2013. The video shows the twenty-six-year-old woman intoxicated and shoplifting; with her…
May 6, 2016
Alex Belth
The Power of Oral History as Journalism

The Power of Oral History as Journalism

“I think I started every interview with: Tell me how you met Bill Cosby.” Noreen Malone, a senior editor at New York magazine, didn’t plan the question ahead of time. As…
May 5, 2016
Keith O'Brien
"Why's This So Good?" No. 101: Ida Tarbell and "The History of The Standard Oil Company"

“Why’s This So Good?” No. 101: Ida Tarbell and “The History of The Standard Oil Company”

I’ve been grappling with what made Ida Tarbell so good since about 1983, when I was appointed executive director of Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE). I felt I needed to…
May 3, 2016
Steve Weinberg
Farah Stockman: "I'm not going to write about them like they're failures"

Farah Stockman: “I’m not going to write about them like they’re failures”

Farah StockmanFarah Stockman came to journalism while teaching street children in Kenya. She worked as a freelancer in Nairobi for The New York Times, NPR and The Christian Science Monitor, and then joined The Boston…
April 28, 2016
Kathleen Burge
"Power of Narrative" conference: Nikole Hannah-Jones on difficult topics

“Power of Narrative” conference: Nikole Hannah-Jones on difficult topics

Two years ago, Nikole Hannah-Jones published “Segregation Now,” a collaboration between her then-employer Pro Publica and The Atlantic, about the desegregation and resegregation of Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Hannah-Jones started her career…
April 27, 2016
Daniel A. Gross
Annotation Tuesday! Jesse Katz goes “Inside the San Quentin Marathon”

Annotation Tuesday! Jesse Katz goes “Inside the San Quentin Marathon”

For many of his 30-plus years in the journalism business, Jesse Katz has been covering crime. Back in the early 1990s, his former employer The Los Angeles Times assigned him…
April 26, 2016
Davis Harper

Susan Orlean: “My method of reporting is just to be there”

Susan Orlean is storied for her stories. Since 1992 she’s been a staff writer at The New Yorker, and her 1998 book “The Orchid Thief” was made into the movie…
April 22, 2016
Kim Tingley