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2013 City & Regional Magazine Awards finalists (Part 1: Feature Story)

2013 City & Regional Magazine Awards finalists (Part 1: Feature Story)

The City and Regional Magazine Association and the Missouri School of Journalism this week announced finalists for the 2013 National City and Regional Magazine Awards. Los Angeles logged the most…
March 8, 2013
Just one question ... for Gene Weingarten, on the Jeffrey MacDonald case

Just one question … for Gene Weingarten, on the Jeffrey MacDonald case

Everybody's read his latest? Great.WILMINGTON, N.C. — They are old men now, the doctor and the lawyer, ancient adversaries confronting each other one last time.The doctor shuffles into the courtroom, his…
March 7, 2013
Annotation Tuesday! Chris Jones and "Animals"

Annotation Tuesday! Chris Jones and "Animals"

By now you've probably heard the story: In October 2011, a suicidal man named Terry Thompson uncaged dozens of wild animals that he kept on his farm in Zanesville, Ohio,…
March 5, 2013
Building your canon: Small-scale narrative

Building your canon: Small-scale narrative

Narrative isn’t synonymous with long-form work. A narrative journalist doesn’t need thousands of words or loads of reporting and writing time to tell a memorable story. For you hunter-gatherers of…
March 1, 2013

"Why’s this so good?" No. 72: E.B. White and the sick pig

The first time most people fall for E.B. White – certainly the first time I did – they are 6 or 7 or 8. In 1952, “Charlotte’s Web” made him the…
February 26, 2013
Kathryn Miles on tall ships, the 'boxcar' structure, finding the story, reading 'promiscuously' and putting an English Lit degree to work

Kathryn Miles on tall ships, the ‘boxcar’ structure, finding the story, reading ‘promiscuously’ and putting an English Lit degree to work

Our latest Notable Narrative is "Sunk," a detailed narrative of the deadly capsizing of the tall ship HMS Bounty during Hurricane Sandy. Kathryn Miles’ story, in Outside magazine, gave a gripping account of…
February 22, 2013
'Sunk,' by Kathryn Miles

‘Sunk,’ by Kathryn Miles

As federal safety hearings end today in the dramatic sinking of the HMS Bounty, we choose the Outside magazine story “Sunk,” by Kathryn Miles, as our latest Notable Narrative. The…
February 21, 2013
Annotation Tuesday! Ben Ehrenreich on the grim reaper, L.A. style

Annotation Tuesday! Ben Ehrenreich on the grim reaper, L.A. style

The subject of death has proven inexhaustible, from the Greeks to Hamlet to E.B. White's pig. In "The End," Ben Ehrenreich examines The Inevitable from an unexpected postmortem angle, and with a…
February 19, 2013
Editors' Roundtable: Two boys, a basketball and a 'magical' shot

Editors’ Roundtable: Two boys, a basketball and a ‘magical’ shot

The Oregonian’s Anna Griffin wrote a story last Sunday about a small but rare and memorable moment in high school sports. Deadspin set it up this way:A young man named Davan Overton in…
February 15, 2013

Work the problem: How to look at your own stories more objectively

Our storytelling advice column continues: A journalist asks a question and we find an accomplished narrative writer or editor to answer it. In our first installment, Dave Tarrant of the Dallas Morning…
February 14, 2013