Author

Jacqui Banaszynski

@JacquiB

Jacqui Banaszynski retired as the endowed Knight Chair in Editing at the Missouri School of Journalism in 2017, is editor emerita 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.

"Problems that are not seen cannot be addressed."

“Problems that are not seen cannot be addressed.”

—From "She Said," by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey of The New York Times
September 20, 2019
If it was good enough for Jane Austen ...

If it was good enough for Jane Austen …

My mother’s reverence for education, a solid grounding in middle-school grammar, and a long career in old-school journalism has chiseled me into one of those people who honors language, and…
September 13, 2019
Will this date ever fade?

Will this date ever fade?

It’s that date again. The one we might even not think about for awhile, or at least send to a distant corner, until it’s upon us with the force and…
September 11, 2019
A new "true story" award honors longform nonfiction from around the world

A new “true story” award honors longform nonfiction from around the world

The ceremony was held in a gilded, 115-year-old opera house in Bern, Switzerland. A giant faux bear shared the stage with a prominent news anchor, who emceed the event in…
September 6, 2019
Revisiting the "Ghost Ship" fire

Revisiting the “Ghost Ship” fire

In early December, 2016, a fire broke out during a concert at “Ghost Ship,” a one-time warehouse in Oakland, California, that had been turned, mostly illegally and in fits and…
September 6, 2019

“Sometimes a story deserves a new look.”

—Investigative reporter Julie K. Brown of the Miami Herald
July 19, 2019
"Truth is whatever you can get enough people to believe."

“Truth is whatever you can get enough people to believe.”

—Jack Holmes, politics editor at Esquire
July 5, 2019
"As I wrote, I was also being written."

“As I wrote, I was also being written.”

—Siri Hustvedt, in her novel "Memories of the Future"
June 28, 2019
"There are more what-ifs than there are stars in the sky."

“There are more what-ifs than there are stars in the sky.”

—New Yorker writer Jill Lepore, in a profile of Ruth Bader Ginsberg
June 14, 2019
Getting in the writing zone

Getting in the writing zone

A chronic reality of writing: It’s a struggle.Or so it often (always?) seems if you’re the writer. You aren’t sure whether your information is sound, where to start your story,…
May 31, 2019