Blog posts and articles on narrative journalism pinged around the Halloween weekend like eyeballs at a zombie food fight—and according to Washingtonian.com, an actual fight broke out at The Washington Post. While the Post’s Henry Allen (a Pulitzer winner for criticism) was reportedly knocking down and punching a younger feature writer over a disagreement related [...]
Tag Archives: narrative journalism
Tom Shroder, former Washington Post Magazine editor, on dinner plates and well-done narrative
October 28, 2009 – 2:03 pm
This week, I had a chance to talk by phone with Tom Shroder, who took a buyout from The Washington Post earlier this year. Shroder specializes in long-form narrative stories and recently launched his own editing site, and so I was curious what he would have to say about the current state of narrative journalism.
In our conversation, he dishes on a common mistake made by narrative freelancers, talks about the genesis of one of the best newspaper narratives ever written, and a offers up a considered defense of poop jokes. Here’s a taste:
Where a lot of narrative journalism went wrong was that it became all about the writing, and not about the details for the story and the facts behind it. People felt they could throw some words at people and dazzle. But even good writers need to start with an exceptional set of facts.
Narrative reporting and the danger of the single story
October 14, 2009 – 3:36 pm
Current Nieman fellow Hopewell Rugoho-Chin’ono recently pointed out this striking TED talk from July, in which Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie speaks on the danger of letting one narrative define other people or places.
Adichie describes her own middle-class family’s servant in Nigeria and how her mother consistently characterized his family by its poverty. She felt [...]
Can ER teach us anything about medical news stories?
October 7, 2009 – 12:10 pm
Yesterday, The Harvard Crimson posted a fascinating article about the power of storytelling. Neal Baer, executive producer of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, spoke at a Radcliffe event titled “Telling Tales: How Stories Can Make a Difference.” The Crimson quotes Baer as saying that when the medical television show ER did a storyline on human [...]
