Jacqui Banaszynski retired as the endowed Knight Chair in Editing at the Missouri School of Journalism in 2017, is editor at Nieman Storyboard, and a faculty fellow at the Poynter Institute. She won the 1988 Pulitzer Prize in feature writing for “AIDS in the Heartland,” a series about a gay farm couple facing AIDS, and was a finalist for the 1986 Pulitzer in international reporting for her account of the sub-Saharan famine.
By Jacqui Banaszynski That political hangover I mentioned several days ago, as I braced for the first (and maybe last) presidential debate of this fraught election season, has turned into a full-blown intellectual headache. It was especially interesting to … Read more
By Jacqui Banaszynski This past weekend, I attended a “golden era” reunion of newsroom staffers from the Register-Guard in Eugene, Oregon. Fourteen hours of driving, much of it in gridlock freeway traffic, for four hours of catch-up with people … Read more
By Jacqui Banaszynski The email arrived almost two weeks ago. I’m embarrassed to say I haven’t yet found a good response. It was sent by a talented young freelancer I met in one of my writing workshops. We keep … Read more
By Jacqui Banaszynski My house crackled with energy for a couple of days last week as I hosted a young friend who is in the prime-time of a reporting/writing career — even if she can’t see it herself right … Read more
By Jacqui Banaszynski I awoke on a recent morning thinking about death. Not morbidly about my own — though at this age, the clock ticks more loudly, so that’s not a far reach. These thoughts were about the too-many … Read more
By Jacqui Banaszynski The 2023 novel “North Woods” by Daniel Mason is about apples, or about a patch of land where a disaffected traveler grew apples, or about the house he built that then crumbled, or … Read more
By Jacqui Banaszynski Last Thursday was momentous news in these dis-United States, bringing news I doubt I need to recap. I confess that I was held captive to radio and news sites for the six weeks of the People … Read more
By Jacqui Banaszynski It’s Memorial Day in these dis-United States. The news won’t take a holiday. There are too many active war zones, notably in Ukraine and Gaza; the armed conflicts that persist in a number of countries the … Read more
By Jacqui Banaszynski The dance of editors and writers. Oh, the stories we all could tell! Mine, during 20 years as a reporter, involve a lot of bratty behavior that would not be tolerated in today’s newsroom culture. I … Read more
By Jacqui Banaszynski Back in March, The New York Times published a how-to piece on styling bookshelves. It was written by Tim McKeough and featured Jeremiah Brent, who is … Read more