The Great Zucchini
Frank Sinatra Has a Cold
You Rang?
Mrs. Kelly’s Monster
The End: What Really Happens After You Die?
Enrique’s Journey
China’s Selfie Obsession
A druglord, two actors and a 10,000 word story
With a new semester that includes Longform Journalism, I'd thought we'd kick off with a look at the bizarre story that involves Mexico's biggest drug lord, a famous American actor and, arguably, the US's biggest pop-culture magazine. Here's a good New York Times story...
The Art of the Tough Interview
This new article in CJR by Gerald Eskenazi on the fine art of reading the moment and asking the right question in an interview starts with Donald Trump and ends with Muhammad Ali. Never thought I'd see those two names in print together. But Eskenazi has the skill to...
The gray zone of plagiarism
by Robin Ewing The Columbia Journalism Review this week published a thoughtful article on plagiarism and the trickiness of defining it in a digital world where "all ideas are secondhand, consciously and unconsciously drawn from a million outside sources." (That quote...
Social media chats used in jailing of Chinese news assistant
By Robin Ewing The mainland Chinese assistant to a German journalist was arrested in Beijing in October after taking photos at Occupy Central in Hong Kong and posting them to her WeChat account. She is still being held, almost four months later, for "inciting a public...
The message is Medium
Medium, a blog-publishing platform, has been called (by others and by Medium itself) the "best writing tool on the web." Anyone can publish and it looks good; "elegant" is the word most often used. If you want to read something that clearly explains what Medium is,...
The Hunting of Billie Holiday by Johann Hari
This is the tragic story of jazz singer Billie Holiday and how she was killed, in part, by the man who created the U.S.'s War on Drugs. Though Holiday died in 1959, this article -- adapted from a book and published here in Politico Magazine -- is based on five...
How a Radical New Teaching Method Could Unleash a Generation of Geniuses
So should I scrap my lesson plans and let my students explore the world on the computer during class? It worked in Mexico! Great story in Wired that reminds us not to underestimate people of any age and also challenges the traditional classroom model.
Slate’s list of the best 25 podcasts ever
Surprise hit Serial, with 1.2 million listeners per episode, has everyone talking about how podcasts are the new hot thing, despite having been around for 10 years (and radio dramas since the 1920s). In fact, podcasts apparently confuse so many people that Ira Glass...
How to be a Writer by Neil Gaiman
Excellent advice from prolific author Neil Gaiman on the best way to be a writer.
The best longform journalism of 2014
A roundup of “Best of” lists for longform journalism in 2014. Longreads’ 10 most popular stories of 2014 Longform’s best of 2014 The World Post’s list of best longreads on world affairs from 2014 Eater’s 15 best longform food stories from 2014 SB Nation’s best...