Story Annotations

Is it real? Or is it Instagram?

Is it real? Or is it Instagram?

The Internet of 2019 is rife with social-media influencers and articles about them. Much of the coverage is fawning and superficial: how to become one, how to make $3,000  per Instagram…
When gun violence visits, a workaday mayor — and hard-working journalist — respond

When gun violence visits, a workaday mayor — and hard-working journalist — respond

By early August of this year, 253 American cities had been added to the map of mass shootings. For a day or two after yet another event, officials in these…
Exposing what the police and courts wouldn't — and what society owes in return

Exposing what the police and courts wouldn’t — and what society owes in return

Haunted by youthful memories of claims of rape, a opinion writer goes home to seek the truth and expose the moral “rot” of shaming the victim
Chasing ghosts that will forever haunt

Chasing ghosts that will forever haunt

"Ghosts of Highway 20:" Through serendipity, creativity and care, a newspaper in Oregon finds answers 40 years after police and courts failed
A sex worker plunges to her death and a reporter demands to know: Who was she?

A sex worker plunges to her death and a reporter demands to know: Who was she?

Dan Barry led a team at The New York Times to uncover a name, a life history, and the sinister world of power and exploitation on 40th Road
On trial for the Ghost Ship warehouse fire: Was an accused villain miscast as the bad guy?

On trial for the Ghost Ship warehouse fire: Was an accused villain miscast as the bad guy?

When Elizabeth Weil thought of profiling Max Harris, one of two people facing criminal charges for Oakland’s deadly Ghost Ship fire, she figured another reporter must already be on the…
From a caress of love to a fist of fear

From a caress of love to a fist of fear

The New Yorker story "A Raised Hand," by Rachel Louise Snyder, is the foundation of a new book on the scourge of domestic violence
Learning to look up, down, sideways, backwards and beyond while storytelling

Learning to look up, down, sideways, backwards and beyond while storytelling

Storytellers in any medium can learn from those in others. Writers must know how to paint mental images through the hieroglyphics of text, apply (and break) rules of grammar to…
Wired's executive editor seeks stories that reveal all faces of technology

Wired’s executive editor seeks stories that reveal all faces of technology

Rejections aren't personal: “70 percent of why pitches don't work has nothing to do with the writer”
Shining light on a "shadow" special-ed program in the Georgia public schools

Shining light on a “shadow” special-ed program in the Georgia public schools

Rachel Aviv of The New Yorker uses the narrative of one child in one school to reveal the widespread costs of "separate and unequal"