Surprising stories spring from any number of places. Investigative or narrative or explanatory stories often start with curiosity sparked by a local news story or feature. That’s what happened when an editor at Slate read a story in a … 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
Coronavirus is no longer something happening somewhere else — no matter where you are — or something that will soon become yesterday’s news. As of this week, cases have been confirmed on every continent but Antarctica. As of today … Read more
Lizzie Presser was looking for the intersection of two wide-ranging and little-known facets of American life: the broad power of contempt laws, and the criminalization of medical debt. The ProPublica reporter found it in Coffeyville, Kansas, and came back … Read more
When she got the story assignment, ESPN senior writer Elizabeth Merrill could hardly believe it: A Villanova basketball star, Shelly Pennefather, won the 1987 Wade Trophy as the top female player in college hoops, then went abroad for a … 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
The Internet of 2019 is rife with social-media influencers and articles about them. Much of the coverage is fawning and superficial: how to become one, how to make $3,000 per Instagram post, how to make … Read more
By early August of this year, 253 American cities had been added to the map of mass shootings. For a day or two after yet another event, officials in these communities — police and politicians — rise to prominence … Read more
It’s difficult to find a writer who isn’t haunted by a story. It could have been the quest that couldn’t catch a glint in an editor’s eye. Maybe one that got away when sources, or record keepers, wouldn’t cooperate. Read more
The image is stark, hypnotic: a road, framed by towering pines, bathed in the blue light of late night or early dawn. The curve of a guardrail and a pickup truck’s headlights blur in the mist. Superimposed over the … Read more
