After two decades as an award-winning journalist, Chip Scanlan taught writing at The Poynter Institute from 1994-2009. His credits include The New York Times, NPR, The Washington Post Magazine and The American Scholar; two essays were listed as notables in Best American Essays. He lives and writes in St. Petersburg, Florida, and publishes Chip’s Writing Lessons, a newsletter of tips and inspiration.
By early August of this year, 253 American cities had been added to the map of mass shootings. For a day or two after yet another event, officials in these communities — police and politicians — rise to prominence … Read more
It’s difficult to find a writer who isn’t haunted by a story. It could have been the quest that couldn’t catch a glint in an editor’s eye. Maybe one that got away when sources, or record keepers, wouldn’t cooperate. Read more
The image is stark, hypnotic: a road, framed by towering pines, bathed in the blue light of late night or early dawn. The curve of a guardrail and a pickup truck’s headlights blur in the mist. Superimposed over the … Read more
Since 2015, Michael Kruse of Politico has written hundreds of thousands of words about Donald J. Trump, plumbing the President’s unorthodox campaign tactics, his dubious finances, his penchant for lawsuits, his biography and his psyche. In the process, … Read more
Faced with nonstop jackhammering, the steady growl and beep of dump trucks, and sickening spirals of dust, residents of a peaceful Manhattan neighborhood searched for ways to take action against a mysterious couple who were tunneling into the earth … Read more
Smart journalists begin their stories with a simple premise: They know nothing. They recognize that their job is to find out everything they can about a subject, piercing their veil of ignorance and easy assumptions through relentless reporting and … Read more
The news that Herman Wouk, whose epic World War II novels kept him atop the best seller lists for much of his literary career, died May 17 at the age of 103, led me back more than five … Read more
Before humans learned to write, they documented their lives through images with technologies fashioned from materials at hand. To create the renowned galleries of animals — objects of fascination, dreams of conquest — in the Lascaux Cave, painted … Read more
Editor’s note: We’re looking the never-ending debate over what is called, in journalese, the “nut graf” — that so-what paragraph or section that pulls out of the news or narrative to provide context and significance. In this post, veteran writer … Read more
EDITOR’S NOTE: While we did not annotate this project by ProPublica Illinois, we are including it in “Annotation Tuesday” because the story itself, as published, was an innovative example of annotated journalism. Effective reporters prize public records — … Read more
