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.

What happens to the investigators who see what the rest of us don't — or won't?

What happens to the investigators who see what the rest of us don’t — or won’t?

By Jacqui BanaszynskiOne of the tragic realities and outrages of life in America has become the steady drumbeat of gun deaths. The news takes on a Gatling-gun pace — and…
April 25, 2023
Ready, fire, aim! aka type, send, think!

Ready, fire, aim! aka type, send, think!

By Jacqui BanaszynskiA reminder about caution on the keyboard was inspired by last week’s news of the arrest of the Air National Guardsman accused of leaking Pentagon documents that contained…
April 18, 2023
Ruts on the road of a writing career

Ruts on the road of a writing career

By Jacqui BanaszynskiDo anything often enough and long enough and you probably, at times, fall into the occasional rut. I don’t know of any fellow journalist, no matter their age…
April 11, 2023
Interviewing as the star of the show

Interviewing as the star of the show

By Jacqui BanaszynskiThe video screens on the back of airplane seats are small and often smudged. But for many years, when I flew twice a week for work, that’s where…
April 4, 2023
"...just how astonishing this particular moment really is."

“…just how astonishing this particular moment really is.”

By Jacqui BanaszynskiContext is a core to good reporting, especially when current events are informed by history, law, geopolitics, culture, economics or the many other things that complicate modern life.…
March 31, 2023
Reaching for tools to summon the Muse

Reaching for tools to summon the Muse

By Jacqui BanaszynskiConsider the tease of the writer’s muse. We wait and wait and wait for her to show up, and get more anxious about her absence as deadline nears.…
March 28, 2023
Divining the "fantastical sea creatures" on the political horizon

Divining the “fantastical sea creatures” on the political horizon

By Jacqui BanaszynskiYou don’t need insider access, aka paid subscriber status, to the news to overindulge in speculation about the possible indictment coming down from a Manhattan grand jury against…
March 23, 2023
Pause before you hit the SEND button

Pause before you hit the SEND button

By Jacqui BanaszynskiI long ago abandoned the illusion that I could block spam from my inboxes, prevent hacks of my accounts or keep much of my private business private. Unless…
March 21, 2023
Writing without words

Writing without words

Ireturned from a recent three-day watercolor workshop with three marginal values’ studies in gray (trying to see and control the range of light-to-dark without being distracted by color), and a…
March 14, 2023
"...the stories it told ... were not someone else’s but one larger story of which they, too, were a part."

“…the stories it told … were not someone else’s but one larger story of which they, too, were a part.”

By Jacqui BanaszynskiAs I read Celeste Ng’s most recent novel, I couldn’t help but think of George Orwell’s “1984” or Margaret Atwood’s “A Handmaid’s Tale.” Nor could I avoid echoes…
March 1, 2023