Narrative News

The path to excellence: Hard thinking, constant worry and "lunch-pail labor"

The path to excellence: Hard thinking, constant worry and “lunch-pail labor”

EDITOR’S NOTE: Storyboard can’t, alas, run tributes to every fine and influential journalist or journalism educator who dies. But some tributes do more than honor an individual at his passing…
May 7, 2020
Walt Harrington
Congratulations to the 2020 Pulitzer Prize winners

Congratulations to the 2020 Pulitzer Prize winners

There are awards upon awards in journalism. But since its launch in 1917, the Pulitzer Prizes have set the gold standard for newspaper reporting, writing, commentary, photography and more. The…
May 4, 2020
Jacqui Banaszynski
Where writers write when they can't write where they like to write

Where writers write when they can’t write where they like to write

Two-time National Magazine Award winner Tom Junod often writes from home. But not always, and especially not on deadline. In a recent Facebook post, he mentioned that when he is…
April 29, 2020
Matt Tullis
When the narrative becomes the disease

When the narrative becomes the disease

EDITOR’S NOTE: This piece is published in partnership with our friends at the Poynter Institute. It’s happening again, as it always happens with disease. Our fear of contagion has turned some…
April 13, 2020
Roy Peter Clark
John Prine would want us to feel real life today, and write it with feeling every day

John Prine would want us to feel real life today, and write it with feeling every day

It’s 4:08 a.m. EST on Wednesday, April 8,  as I type this, and John Prine has been dead for too long.Like many of you, I went to bed a few…
April 8, 2020
Wade Livingston
Why storytelling can be more important — and sexier — than fishing and hunting

Why storytelling can be more important — and sexier — than fishing and hunting

Once upon a time, the sun and the moon — the man and the woman — had a quarrel over who was the strongest of the two, and whether one…
March 10, 2020
Line Vaaben
What journalistic process can teach both kids and scientists

What journalistic process can teach both kids and scientists

Janica Johnson flipped her reporter’s notebook open to an empty page as she and her team prepared for an interview with Donna Shows, a cell biologist from the Benaroya Research…
February 28, 2020
Claire Hassler
A new science writing anthology offers lessons for any journalist covering a complex world

A new science writing anthology offers lessons for any journalist covering a complex world

While there are no dearth of journalism textbooks on the market, many skim over well-trod territory rather than dive deep into a specialty field. And those that do take that…
February 21, 2020
Jacqui Banaszynski
A career newspaperwoman visits the Newseum in its final days

A career newspaperwoman visits the Newseum in its final days

Today is the last day for the Newseum, that glitzy, over-the-top temple to journalism in Washington, D.C. It lasted 11 years, eight months and 20 days — shorter than most…
December 31, 2019
Lisa Grace Lednicer
A needle in time to heal pains of the past

A needle in time to heal pains of the past

It is widely believed that storytellers can turn almost anything into a good story, which gives them a bottomless well of topics. But even the celebrated ones, like Romanian-Moldovan writer…
November 22, 2019
Ioana Burtea