It wasn’t the sensational headline — “The Real-Life Mad Max Who Battled ISIS in a Bulletproof BMW” — that grabbed my attention. It was the next bit. “Here is a person I came to really … Read more
A feeling of loyalty and loss runs through this week’s posts. In Iraq, a local SWAT team tries to avenge their families — and save their city. In a Bruce Springsteen song, a highway patrolman with a brother on the … Read more
Many journalists covered the battle for Mosul, the capital of the self-styled Caliphate of the Islamic extremist group ISIS. American author Luke Mogelson, on assignment for The New Yorker, viewed it from a unique angle: He embedded for two … Read more
As a college sophomore in 2005, I read Dana Priest’s report about “black sites” –far-flung secret prisons overseas that the CIA used to house terrorist suspects captured from the battlefields. One in Afghanistan, known as the “Salt Pit,” was … Read more
This week, journalists had their version of the Oscars (minus the red carpet and catty remarks about who-wore-what). The Pulitzer announcements are always an electric moment in a newsroom. Back in the old days, we’d gather around one designated computer and … Read more
Why is it great? Chivers just won the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing for his magazine profile of Sam Siatta, a Marine suffering from PTSD. How did he make a story that has been told many times before so … Read more
So much of tech journalism today is antiseptic or fawning, with beat reporters chasing the latest product release or “exclusive” CEO interview. Adrian Chen, on the other hand, is a master at revealing the human side of technology, and often … Read more
We’ve become too familiar, sadly, with the narrative of destructive PTSD as troops return from Afghanistan and Iraq. But in the hands of Los Angeles Times writer Thomas Curwen, we find a quieter but no less devastating picture of … Read more
I follow the journalist Randy Potts on social media, so I had known for weeks that he was planning to launch “The Bible Went Down With The Birdie Jean,” a serialized, reported memoir about life as the gay grandson of … Read more
A swirling pinkish orb, emerging out of the void. Voiceover: “Hundreds of years down the line, who’s going to know who was the president of the United States, or something?” Solar rays over a vast planetary … Read more