It’s been a volatile few months for ethics in storytelling, what with the unprecedented “This American Life” retraction of monologist Mike Daisey’s Apple story, and with the unfurled furor over John D’Agata’s anti-accuracy screed in The … Read more
So, you, a journalist, are given this ridiculous, outrageous assignment: Write a story about one of your own, a writer who betrayed your profession on a spectacular scale. It’s the story of Stephen Glass, perhaps the most remarkable fabulist ever … Read more
There are two stories from the immediate aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001, that to me remain better than all the others. R.W. Apple wrote a news analysis that ran on the front of the New York Times on Sept. Read more
After some months spent planning to write about Gene Weingarten’s story “The Peekaboo Paradox” for this site, I caught up with the two-time Pulitzer winner in Texas this summer at the Mayborn Conference. And when I … Read more
The Great Zucchini has a secret. And in “The Peekaboo Paradox,” Gene Weingarten exhumes the history that haunts the most popular children’s entertainer in Washington, D.C. The story, which ran in January 2006, is the best thing ever … Read more
Our latest Editors’ Roundtable looks at Cynthia Gorney’s story “Too Young To Wed,” from the June issue of National Geographic. In addition to her work for National Geographic, Gorney is a professor at the Berkeley Graduate School of … Read more
Yesterday, our Editors’ Roundtable dissected “Ala. tornado twists two families together” by Stephanie McCrummen, which follows the development of an unlikely connection in the aftermath of a tornado. Late last month, McCrummen talked with us by email about … Read more
For the first Roundtable of the month, our editors looked at “Ala. tornado twists two families together” by Stephanie McCrummen from The Washington Post. The story, published early in May, covers an unusual connection between strangers after a … Read more
A bevy of biographers gathered in May in Washington, D.C., at the second annual Compleat Biographer Conference to discuss how to chase down subjects and make their lives into great stories. Last week we covered Robert Caro’s … Read more
We’re thrilled to hear this morning that Iran has freed detained journalist (and 2009 Nieman fellow) Dorothy Parvaz. Alan Cowell and J. David Goodman reported in The New York Times that, without advance notice, Dorothy called her fiancé, … Read more