On May 6, 2000, the Nieman Foundation and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism convened a panel of journalists to discuss narrative journalism. This event occurred during a two-day conference focused on nonfiction writing that was part of the 2000 … Read more
The death penalty is under the journalistic microscope. Scrutiny of prosecutions and court procedures, along with new testing of DNA evidence, is illuminating ways in which the legal system—from the cops to the courts—does not always arrive at a just … Read more
A Hutu man who did not support the genocide had been imprisoned in a concentration camp, starved, and attacked with machetes. He managed to survive, and after he was freed was placed in … Read more
Mark Kramer, who directs a narrative journalism conference each year at Boston University, opens our series of articles by asserting that “narrative writing is returning to newspapers.” The reasons are as simple as the lure of storytelling and as complex as the business environment in which newspapers struggle to survive. In this issue, newspaper writers and editors, television correspondents and anchors, journalism professors and physicians write about narrative’s revival in the telling of news. Their words speak of possibilities, but also warn of the need for caution. Read more
