Some journalistic tenets are almost sacred, among them: The story is not about us. But sometimes, the story is. Or at least the journalist is living the same story as his or her sources and readers. That is especially … Read more
Do you remember your college commencement speaker, or anything s/he said? I had it in my head that a state legislator spoke at my high school graduation in 1970, but had to reach out to former classmates to confirm … Read more
America’s quadrennial obsession with Iowa has passed like the season’s last snow storm, there for a turbulent moment but forgotten three days later. The nail-biting over bad election apps and inadequate phone banks and questions of a … Read more
After 40-some years of practicing journalism, I decided there was much I still had to learn about the craft. So I became a teacher. Any of you who have gone from reporting and writing to talking about reporting and … Read more
Four centuries ago this year, a privateer named the White Lion anchored off Point Comfort, an English colony in what is now Hampton, Virginia. In its cramped hold, it carried 20 or so human beings kidnapped from an ancient … Read more
Defining a writer’s “voice” has always stumped me. It came up again recently, when a journalism professor put me on speaker phone with her class of college freshmen, who had a straightforward question: What is the difference between personal … Read more
My mother’s reverence for education, a solid grounding in middle-school grammar, and a long career in old-school journalism has chiseled me into one of those people who honors language, and tries to be precise — at least when I … Read more
When it came time to write about the 50th anniversary of man’s first walk on the moon, Charles P. Pierce jettisoned sentimentality like a booster rocket. The opening of Pierce’s July 20 Esquire column touches … Read more
In his “New in Town” standup comedy special, John Mulaney tells how, when he was 10, he was in love with his babysitter, who he thought was much older. But as an adult, he discovered she’d been only 13 at … Read more
Editor’s note: We’re looking at the never-ending debate over what is called, in journalese, the “nut graf” — that so-what paragraph or section that pulls out of the news or narrative to provide context and significance. In earlier posts, veteran … Read more