Articles

Let’s talk about why we’re not talking, shall we?I’ve noticed a recent video journalism trend against treating the audience to a bit of narration. Yes, I said narration: the stuff…

Every narrative journalist can point to a story or a book, or two, that changed their lives, and that made them want to tell true stories. What story does it for…

Dan Barry peddles in the petits dramas and crossroads that ordinary people meet day to day. Some of his best "This Land" columns for the New York Times suggest items…

We chose Erin Sullivan’s story about a 9/11 survivor as our latest Notable Narrative for the usual reasons − interesting characters; strong, memorable writing − but also because it contained the watermark…

We thought about rounding up some of the week’s better 9/11 anniversary coverage (including that viral thing about rescue dogs, because a great protagonist doesn’t have to be human), but…

A tattered, stapled-together copy of Scott Anderson’s “The Hunger Warriors” now qualifies as one of my oldest and most treasured possessions. I distinctly remember snipping it out of the New…

The first week of fall term ends today at Harvard, and the Nieman Foundation's newest class of fellows is settling in. The Nieman fellowship, which next year will celebrate its…

In 1977, Joan Didion told The Paris Review that she always kept in mind one line of poetry, from T.S. Eliot’s “Four Quartets”: “at the still point of the turning world.” I don’t…

In July 2011, Michael Kruse of the St. Petersburg Times (now the Tampa Bay Times) wrote a haunting story about the “disappearance” and death of a woman named Kathryn Norris. He did it…

The best stories – even the written ones – have audio. Maybe it’s a sensibility: voice or style, which Ben Yagoda explores in his craft book The Sound on the…