Welcome to Storyboard’s first annual year-end roundup of top storytelling: 34 of our favorite pieces in audio, magazines, newspapers and online, with three of the … Read more
Photographer Francine Orr had experience reporting on poverty and humanitarian crises around the globe. But while working on “Gimme Shelter,” an audio slide show about L.A.-area homeless people living under a bridge, she found plenty to cover—and plenty to fear—right in her own back yard.
[caption id="attachment_1488" align="alignleft" width="176" caption="L.A. Times/Francine Orr"][/caption]
Orr spoke about the dangers of reporting on mentally ill addicts:
"There’s such a history of random violence along the river. Everything is okay there until it’s not, and sometimes you don’t have warning before it changes. I always had to be aware of who was standing behind me, because I didn’t want someone to smash the back of my head while I was doing my work."
And on how she views journalists' responsibilities to subjects, Orr had this to offer:
"I’m a journalist; I’m not a social worker. If I do my job well, I present the story in a truthful manner, in an accurate manner, in a somewhat compassionate manner. I leave it to the viewer, to the reader, to respond. If they feel there is a need or an injustice that requires some action, that’s their role. My role is to present the story."
Read the full interview. Read more
The life and death of an American Catholic in Africa provides the subject for this month’s Notable Narrative, “The Collar and the Gun.” The three-part serial draws out narrative details that make Kaiser’s missionary lifestyle come alive, from the brown … Read more
“One by one they fell away, the doctrinal pillars of the house his father built.” This is the story of Chuck Smith, Jr., and his movement away from the stern beliefs and fundamentalist community of his father’s church. The story … Read more
Al Moreno is 60 and wants to join the Marines. He’s haunted by his father’s defection from the armed forces during the second world war; he wants the Marines to send him to Iraq so he can redress this painful … Read more
This is a real story, structurally speaking: The main character’s problem is clear from the outset, and we are engaged by the central question of whether he will succeed. Secondary dramatic threads—the missing mother, the dissatisfied girlfriend—enrich the narrative and … Read more
