Author

Jacqui Banaszynski

@JacquiB

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.

Fifty years of Robert Caro's reporting notes going public

Fifty years of Robert Caro’s reporting notes going public

Oh, to study those yellowed pages, with words pecked by a typewriter, then crossed out and scribbled over and typed on more pages. To marvel at those scrapbooks — more…
Why journalists rise up in the face of fear

Why journalists rise up in the face of fear

The email that pinged my inbox Wednesday, as an assault on the U.S. Capitol was at its most intense, was quick and blunt:“Aren’t you glad you’re not out there?”I responded…
Thrilling journalism in face of a terrible year

Thrilling journalism in face of a terrible year

A version of this essay was published as the Storyboard newsletter on Jan. 1, 2020 A flip of a calendar page and, just like that, 2020 is over. Of course, it…
Passports to authentic reporting: a foreign view, and a view through empathy

Passports to authentic reporting: a foreign view, and a view through empathy

At the end of this, a year that defies easy summary, we abandon attempts to try. Instead, here are two bits of lagniappe that came our way and we pass…
"The mountains on the horizon ..."

“The mountains on the horizon …”

Cal Hooper is a Chicago cop who was ditched by his wife, estranged from his daughter, haunted by past cases and addicted to the action. Somewhere along the way, the…
A very few of my favorite fiction reads of 2020

A very few of my favorite fiction reads of 2020

I started with the notion of trying to wade through the weeds of this past year and list the things that kept me in astonishment as a reader, writer, editor…
A go-to list of how-to story craft posts from 2020

A go-to list of how-to story craft posts from 2020

One the best things about writing, or any storytelling, as a career is also one of the worst: You’re never as good as you can get. Sourcing, research, interviewing, story…
"He was old enough to dance to a good beat but too young to know his favorite color."

“He was old enough to dance to a good beat but too young to know his favorite color.”

A line from a 1993 story about gun violence in America has stayed with me all these years. It was by DeNeen Brown of The Washington Post, called “Getting Ready…
#3 rule of pitching: Flyspeck your copy

#3 rule of pitching: Flyspeck your copy

In story pitches, first impressions count
Writing history as we live it

Writing history as we live it

It has become a common refrain in these chaotic times: We’re not just reading history; we’re living it.That’s always been true, I suppose, for anyone living at any time. But…