13 ways to consider an interview

A magazine writer and editor shares real-life lessons from 50 years of interviewing: It's not a conversation and you are not a supplicant

By Dale Keiger • October 10, 2024

Pygmy nuthatches, fountain pens, yellowed clips and time ahead

The editor muses on the unknowable 'what's next' for her writing and teaching as she hands the Storyboard baton forward

By Jacqui Banaszynski • September 30, 2024

A new freelance business works like a “dating app for fact-checking”

Journalist and entrepreneur Wudan Yan launches "Factual" to match writers and publications with freelance fact-checkers to ensure accuracy

By Madeline Bodin • September 26, 2024

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Reporting beyond shame and blame, secrets and stereotypes

By Kim Cross

August 8, 2024

Esquire's Mark Warren immersed himself in evangelical Alabama to find the pain and grace behind a beloved pastor's suicide

Effective editing: Navigating failures of the military’s mental health system

By Carly Stern

July 11, 2024

A project annotation by Alexandra Zayas of ProPublica offers insights to how an editor sees story potential and guides reporters

What happens to crime scene investigators who have to see the unseeable?

By Chip Scanlan

June 27, 2024

Nonfiction author Jay Kirk used time, openness and empathy for a New York Times Magazine profile of the Sandy Hook school shooting investigators

How a profile of a Kabul hotel became a profile of today’s Afghanistan

By Ania Hull

June 20, 2024

Andreas Babst of Switzerland went behind-the-scenes of the fabled Intercontinental Hotel with two employees — one Talib, one not

Effective editing: Lynda Robinson annotates a sensitive story on faith and family

By Carly Stern

June 12, 2024

The Washington Post enterprise editor gives a behind-the-scenes look at how she worked with a reporter to access sources and recreate scenes

How a reporter prepped to understand A.I. and the man who helped invent it

By Chip Scanlan

June 6, 2024

New Yorker Ideas Editor Joshua Rothman brushed up on algebra and spent four days on a private island to profile the "godfather" of A.I.

Effective editing: Mike Wilson annotates a complex story he edited

By Carly Stern

May 31, 2024

EDITOR’S NOTE: In this installment of our occasional series “What Makes a Good Editor,” we featured a Q&A with Mike Wilson of The New York Times “Great Reads” and follow it with his annotation below of a long-term reporting project he edited. Divided by Politics, a… Read More

Story Annotations

Respecting the tortured voice and troubled choices of the mentally ill

By Chip Scanlan

March 22, 2024

Ellen Barry of The New York Times unspooled the heartbreaking consequences of no-great-choices for those in the mental health system

Story Annotations

A reporting team trekked back 50 years to explore an unsolved climbing mystery

By Chip Scanlan

February 6, 2024

In "Ghosts on the Glacier," John Branch and a New York Times multi-media team tell a tale with echoes of the 2012 Pulitzer-winning project "Snow Fall"

Story Annotations

How an arts reporter unraveled a controversial and opaque family art dynasty

By Chip Scanlan

January 24, 2024

Rachel Corbett hunted back through generations of art deals, international laws and tax havens to explore suspicions about a family's hidden fortune

Story Annotations

How a business reporter approached a story about sex-content influencers

By Trevor Pyle

January 17, 2024

Drew Harwell peeked behind the screen of OnlyFans, a social media sex site, for The Washington Post's "creator economy" series

Story Annotations

Reporting past the black-and-white politics of school book bans

By Tom Warhover

December 6, 2023

Education reporter Hannah Natanson profiled a teacher facing a divided classroom as part of the Washington Post's "School Book Wars" series

Story Craft

13 ways to consider an interview

A magazine writer and editor shares real-life lessons from 50 years of interviewing: It's not a conversation and you are not a supplicant

From the Editor

Pygmy nuthatches, fountain pens, yellowed clips and time ahead

The editor muses on the unknowable 'what's next' for her writing and teaching as she hands the Storyboard baton forward

Narrative News

A new freelance business works like a “dating app for fact-checking”

Journalist and entrepreneur Wudan Yan launches "Factual" to match writers and publications with freelance fact-checkers to ensure accuracy

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