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.
Speculation runs hot these days about a return to some kind of post-pandemic normal. Among my employed journalism friends, that raises the question: When do you think you’ll go back? In this case, it doesn’t mean back to work. Read more
A lame inside joke in many of the newsrooms of America: The sports department is also referred to as “the toy department.” After all, the coverage focuses on games. Until you read more closely. Sports is about so much … Read more
I‘m not sure why a New Yorker story from November 2017 showed up in my social media feed in recent days, but I’m glad it did. I’m from the generation that was raised on the romance and courage of … Read more
In case you missed it: Terry Gross, host of NPR’s “Fresh Air,” had a rich conversation this week (March 9, 2021) with freelance journalist and author Katie Englehart about the legal and ethical debates around the … Read more
Daily meanderings that became ephemeral art that became a political statement that became a historical discovery tour have now become a book. A few weeks ago, retired sports editor Cathy Henkel wrote about the countdown project … Read more
The number, when it landed, should have been no surprise. Even so, it held the power to shock. I spent a week bracing myself for news that the COVID death rate in the U.S. had hit 500,000 — leading … Read more
The George Polk Awards were established 73 years ago to honor George Polk, a CBS correspondent who was killed while covering the civil war in Greece. They now rank among the most prestigious prizes for journalism that places “ … Read more
EDITOR’S NOTE: A version of this essay was first published Feb. 19, 2021, as a Storyboard newsletter. That was two days before the tragic news that COVID deaths in the U.S. had topped 500,000. In retrospect, this reflection seems both … Read more
It’s been just over two years since we wrote about Tyrone Beason, then a Seattle Times columnist who had fallen out of love with the city as its tech-fueled growth seemed to discard funk and character and anyone without … Read more
It has become an all-too-common question, from students and young journalists and even struggling veterans: Why does this work matter if nothing changes? I could spend a lifetime of study and meditation to parse that question, and still find … Read more
