So I leave the country for a few weeks, and I miss the latest Twitter storm surrounding Gay Talese. The world may have moved on to Pokemon (and by the time you read this, it will no doubt have moved … Read more
Forty-six minutes into Episode 4 of Ezra Edelman’s epic documentary “O.J. Simpson: Made in America,” the director squares off with Barry Scheck, the defense attorney who discredited–or, at the very least, undermined–the State of California’s DNA evidence tying Simpson … Read more
[Editor’s note: John Jeremiah Sullivan‘s “Upon This Rock” is by now a modern classic of literary journalism: writer rents an RV, experiences a Christian rock festival (and certain revelations) with a bunch of guys from West Virginia. In … Read more
Last week, a student asked for notable examples of the write-around, that subgenre in which the journalist had limited to no access with the story subject. The most famous examples are Gay Talese’s “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold” … Read more
Roger Angell has been writing stories about baseball since the year before John F. Kennedy was assassinated. He’s been a contributor to The New Yorker since 1944 and became fiction editor in 1956. His June 1975 profile of Pittsburgh Pirates … Read more
What we’re reading, in the world of narrative journalism, essays and academia: Long Mile Home: Boston Under Attack, the City’s Courageous Recovery, and the Epic Hunt for Justice, by Scott Helman and Jenna Russell. Helman and Russell, Boston Globe reporters, … Read more
Buzz Bissinger’s “The Killing Trail” — his unremittingly bleak 1995 account of “fag-bashing” in Texas — was his first story for Vanity Fair. (He is still a contributor, and has a story in the February … Read more
Because why not a list of lists? Ten* worth the storyteller’s time: 1) “130 years of must-read stories for digital journalists: five lessons from 1851-1981,” by Abraham Hyatt, editor of the data-driven investigative project Oakland Police Beat. His top … Read more
We’ve configured this year’s Best of Storyboard roundup by category* this year, as opposed to ranking them by readership, though we’ll say that in terms of pageviews the Gay Talese/Elon Green annotation of “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold” walloped … Read more
Pinned for your storytelling pleasure, a roundup of recent great reads, vids, tips, etc.: In case you missed it, Part 1: Gay Talese and Elon Green annihilated Storyboard traffic records this week with their critically acclaimed annotation of “Frank … Read more