Jim Morris was four decades into a successful investigative journalism career spotlighting environmental and labor issues. His storytelling — in newspapers, magazines and broadcast — was intimate and girded with data. He had more than 80 awards to his … Read more
Isabelle Roughol has not gone quietly into this global pandemic. Quite the opposite. Each week she produces an episode of her podcast Borderline from her current home in London. Recent episodes include an interview with Canadian … Read more
It wasn’t that long ago that Anne Christnovich vowed never to take another job in journalism. It was the spring of 2018. She was the managing editor of the Standard-Examiner in Ogden, Utah — a position she’d been recruited … Read more
The Pivot: A brief prelude On an early afternoon in early March in Upper Manhattan, a dozen graduate students in Columbia Journalism School’s Arts and Culture seminar gathered their notebooks and coffee mugs as class wrapped up for the week. Read more
When Reuters, the venerable global news agency, hired narrative veteran Kari Howard to be its first Storytelling Editor, she brought three principles to guide reporters in the field: Examine closely. Connect with people. Don’t rush. To see those principles … Read more
You no doubt know Reuters, the global financial news giant that is now part of Thomson Reuters. But you might not know that when it launched more than a century ago, it was with the help of a flock … Read more
“The Loneliest Polar Bear” wasn’t just a heart-tugging news story. It was a suspenseful, multi-thousand word saga about an abandoned newborn polar bear. It was rationed into five chapters that were published in the print paper and online. It … Read more
“The Trials of Whiteboy Rick,” the Atavist Magazine story, by Evan Hughes, of a baby-faced young white man who rose to the top of Detroit’s mostly black cocaine world. “I’ll Be Gone in the Dark” about journalist … Read more
The first sentence is treacherous: This is how I die. It stands alone, in italics – first person, no quote marks. It reads like an epitaph beneath a photograph of six people huddled close – some wearing breathing masks, … Read more
There are known news conventions: something happens and someone writes about it and somebody publishes it and then maybe people talk about it. There are known narrative conventions: a relatable protagonist confronts a complication and, through time and rising … Read more