EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the first of three annotated chapters that follow a grieving man’s journey into artificial intelligence to reconnect with his dead lover, and find some peace. You can read Chapter 2, “Life,” and … Read more
This week has me thinking of the dynamics of power, racial and sexual, governmental and personal. An Iranian blogger who goes to prison for six years for his words. The wife of a famous (and famously philandering) writer who appears … Read more
When Colin McNulty was developing a podcast about Oprah Winfrey, the producer for WBEZ Chicago found inspiration in an unlikely place: “House of Cards,” the Netflix series about a scheming Washington politician who eventually becomes president of the United States. Read more
This week, International Women’s Day really grabbed the spotlight with the Day Without a Woman protests and homages to role models on social media (shout-out to Nieman Lab’s great Instagram posts on inspirational women journalists). But the crowds weren’t … Read more
The words appear on a blank white screen, accompanied by an atonal, ominous peal of music. “One frosty October morning, a newborn baby boy is found inside a plastic bag inside an Oslo graveyard. The baby is about to die.” … Read more
When I worked at the Los Angeles Times, one of the things that made me the proudest of the newspaper was its commitment to covering every killing in L.A. County with its Homicide Report. In the face of a … Read more
I follow the journalist Randy Potts on social media, so I had known for weeks that he was planning to launch “The Bible Went Down With The Birdie Jean,” a serialized, reported memoir about life as the gay grandson of … Read more