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What I Learned by Reading 31 Longreads in 31 Days
Now that I’ve wrapped up my 31 Longreads in 31 Days challenge, here are some thoughts, observations, and takeaways from the experience. 1. Longform nonfiction is alive and well With the collapse of the magazine industry and the shrinking newspaper business, many have suggested that longform nonfiction feature writing is a dying genre, with business…
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“The Lost City of Z” (31 Longreads in 31 Days, Day 16)
There are longreads. And then there are long longreads. And then there are epic, holy-f@#king-shit longreads that just leave you blown away. The Lost City of Z,” by David Grann in the September 19, 2005 issue of The New Yorker fits into that last category. Photo of explorer Percy Fawcett; source unknown At just over…
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Washington Post’s “Facebook Story”
As I’ve noted before, many modern web communications create natural narratives. “A Facebook Story” by Ian Shapira in the Washington Post is a powerful work of narrative journalism that follows the story of a pregnant woman’s journey through her posts and those of her family and friends. Most of the story is told through the…
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Long-form narrative and the art of cooking slow food
In the Washington Post last week, Joel Achenbach wrote an interesting feature on the diminishing opportunities for long-form narrative nonfiction in the newspaper-death-spiral/Twitter/iPhone era. As seems to be the case anytime that I read about trends in the magazine and news business world these days, the outlook isn’t promising. There seem to be two lines…
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Huffington Post jumps ahead of Washington Post in online readership
Arianna is conquering journalism? Editor & Publisher reports today that the Huffington Post, which didn’t exist until 2005, had more unique visitors than the Washington Post web site in September. It doesn’t help that the Post editorial page has drifted to the right for a decade, that the editors allow for gross inaccuracies and distortions…
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Writing: An “elitist” career?
Dana Goldstein, a former CAP co-worker who now writes for The Amercan Prospect, put up a post on “Journalism’s Elitism Problem.” In short, she points out that the career path for many professional writers involves four years of college education (and any debt that comes with that) followed by unpaid (or barely paid) internships, which…
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Defending Michael Vick
Baltimore Sun Columnist Susan Reimer spoke to my graduate class last week giving us some tips and suggestions on writing columns, including: ask a lot of questions write what you know simplicity and clarity are key read other writers if you’re not an expert, admit it be a contrarian Michael Vick is a bad man. The…
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Nieman Conference: Wrap Up
I’m back from Boston now, after my second Nieman Conference. Overall, another really impressive, well-run event. Kudos to everyone at the Nieman Foundation for putting on a fine conference. A few quick closing thoughts: Books I want to buy now, based on what I saw in Boston: D.C. Comics Guide to Writing Comics. Tom French…
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Nieman Conference: Thoughts on Day One
At the Nieman Conference, everyone talks about “storytelling.” It’s what most writers here aspire to, rather than everyday news journalism. So when I walked into the main hall for the Connie Schultz keynote address, the story of the state of the journalism industry was told in the size of the room itself. The welcome and…