For the second Roundtable of July, our editors looked at “Watching the Murder of an Innocent Man” by Barry Bearak of the New York Times. Bearak has spent the last three years as co-bureau chief of the Times’ Johannesburg outpost, and his June 5 story investigates the death of a young man at the hands [...]
Tag Archives: Tom Huang
July Editors’ Roundtable No. 1: the St. Petersburg Times’ snapshot between before and after
July 5, 2011 – 1:07 pm
For the first Roundtable of July, our editors looked at “Diving headlong into a sunny paradise” by Lane DeGregory of the St. Petersburg Times. The story follows a young Wisconsin couple on their first day starting a new life in Florida. Appearing in print on Memorial Day, DeGregory’s piece was edited by Mike Wilson, the [...]
June Editors’ Roundtable No. 2: The Seattle Times, a first pitch, and the Queen of Samoas
June 15, 2011 – 11:01 am
We’re fine-tuning our Editors’ Roundtable, moving toward more frequent postings and smaller groups of editors looking at each story. As part of those changes, today we highlight our second June Roundtable (if you missed the first, you can see it here). One classic daily newspaper narrative is the story of the very sick child. A member [...]
June Editors’ Roundtable: The Washington Post finds order in chaos
June 6, 2011 – 3:47 pm
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 twister roared through Rainsville, Ala. We’ve switched things up a little this installment, freeing editors from a [...]
May Editors’ Roundtable: St. Petersburg Times dives into missing man mystery
May 4, 2011 – 11:02 am
This month, the Editors’ Roundtable looks at “When a diver goes missing, a deep cave is scene of a deeper mystery” by Ben Montgomery of the St. Petersburg Times. The story, our first newspaper narrative for the Roundtable, tells the tale of Ben McDaniel, who disappeared at Vortex Spring in August of last year. Each month, we [...]
April Editors’ Roundtable: GQ dives into the personal consequences of war
April 6, 2011 – 10:00 am
Stop shopping for your Easter bonnet, and put down those 1040s – it’s time for a new Editors’ Roundtable! This session, our editors are looking at Michael Paterniti’s “The Boy from Gitmo,” which ran in the February issue of GQ. Paterniti’s piece explores the relationship between Mohammed Jawad, a boy who was sent to Guantánamo Bay [...]
March Editors’ Roundtable: Mother Jones looks at rape in Haiti
March 3, 2011 – 3:25 pm
The narrative for discussion in the second installment of our Editors’ Roundtable is “Welcome to Haiti’s Reconstruction Hell” by Mac McClelland. Appearing in Mother Jones earlier this year, the story was written after a visit in 2010 to survey the island’s post-quake recovery efforts. Clara Jeffery, one of two editors-in-chief at Mother Jones, edited the piece. The narrative [...]
February Editors’ Roundtable: Time magazine takes on the Tucson shootings
February 1, 2011 – 10:49 am
The narrative selected for discussion by our first-ever Editors’ Roundtable is “The Real Lesson of the Tucson Tragedy” by David Von Drehle. Appearing in Time magazine five days after the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and so many others, the piece draws on reporting from six reporters who fed Von Drehle material from Tucson, New York and [...]
The Justice League of narrative? Even better: it’s the roster of our new Editors’ Roundtable
January 21, 2011 – 1:18 pm
Earlier this week, we announced a new offering on Storyboard – an Editors’ Roundtable, in which a stellar group of editors will collectively analyze a piece of narrative journalism. We invited Storyboard readers to submit links to the best true story they had read recently. Submissions are open indefinitely, so please continue to forward material at [...]
Narrative tips for nonfiction writers: more from the 2010 Mayborn Conference
July 28, 2010 – 11:18 am
I recently led a writing workshop at the Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference, and talked to students about finding the meaning in their stories and going deep – while at the same time writing in a simple and clear way. Here are some tips. FINDING THE STORY Every story has its surface-level meaning. Let’s say the surface [...]
