By Chip Scanlan The best narrative writers know they need not just to interview after the fact, but to observe in the moment. They want to be on the scene, where they see characters and action unfold in real … Read more
By Chip Scanlan and Casey Frechette Nieman Storyboard contributor Chip Scanlan and Casey Frechette worked together for more than a decade at The Poynter Institute where they created online courses in reporting and writing. Casey is an associate professor … Read more
By Chip Scanlan Every beat has its own allure. The dramatic stories of crime, criminals and their victims draw reporters to the cops beat. The best science journalists revel in data, discoveries, evidence and the challenges of determining their … Read more
By Trevor Pyle The world of online influencers — especially those who trade in sexual content — is an economic behemoth that’s often-murky and often-mocked. But Washington Post reporter Drew Harwell used his remarkable story on a pair of … Read more
By Katia Savchuk David Grann believes that scouting an idea for a book or magazine article should be more than an intellectual exercise. The right story, he says, “gets its hooks into you.” The tales that grip Grann, a … Read more
By Tom Warhover There’s a war on words and images out there. Book banning in schools is trending these days, supercharged with the twin engines of social media and political extremism. Banning has reached historic highs. Book challenges are … Read more
By Jacqui Banaszynski Whenever someone asks if they could tap me as an editor to help them with a project, I start with a direct question: What do you mean by “editor?” Many seem baffled by that question. No … Read more
By AniaHull Unless he’s at the keyboard, writing or editing his work, this is what Luke Mogelson takes with him to work: an old desert-camouflage bullet-proof vest, a Kevlar helmet, a GoPro clipped to the front of his vest, … Read more
By Talia Richman Before our first meeting about how to tackle a tick-tock of the mass shooting at an outlet mall in Allen, Texas, this spring, Kelley Benham French sent over an annotated copy of David … Read more
By Jacqui Banaszynski The recent issues I could write about for Storyboard are many: the pros and cons of using a thesaurus; how we both hunger for and dread feedback on our writing; navigating the ethics of anonymous sources … Read more
