85th Anniversary Issue: The Story I Couldn't Let Go

“Stories stalk you. Stories beguile you. They bewitch you. It’s not easy to fend them off, even when you’ve vowed you will,” Susan Orlean writes in our Fall 2023 issue, which commemorates the Nieman Foundation’s 85th anniversary. Over 400 Nieman alumni gathered at Lippmann House in October for the occasion, where during the reunion weekend, one event asked fellows to respond to a simple prompt: Tell us the story you couldn’t let go of. Five of those stories, delivered live at the reunion, are featured in this issue. These stories have liberated low-income patients from hospital debt, landed a fellow in a Zimbabwean prison, delved into the inner workings of libraries, joined together two fellows in Ukraine, and chased down the circus of Alabama politics.