Features

When everyone is a publisher, everyone should be a journalist, too

Using his Massively Parallel Database (MaPD), MIT researcher Todd Mostak was able to visualize how quickly news of the Boston Marathon bombings spread on Twitter. His system can map millions…

Marcela Turati tried to hide her tears, but the rainy season was still weeks away and teardrops were hard to disguise.As I approached her, she quickly turned her face, trying…

Sandy Close, recipient of the 2012 I.F. Stone Medal, has made a career out of helping ethnic communities and the dispossessed tell their own stories

Close asked Mark O’Brien, confined to an iron lung, to write about sex and disability. A documentary she co-produced about him won an Oscar. Photo by Paul Sakuma/The Associated Press.RELATED…

The critic’s calling is to elevate the good and ignore the bad

Robert Christgau reflects on the art of writing well about music

When everybody’s a critic, what’s the role of a professional reviewer?

How the roles of curator and critic can be complementary rather than combative

The stench seeps through the walls of the morgue. It wafts through schools, businesses and homes, impregnates clothing, sticks in throats and noses, provokes nausea, obliges one to walk faster.…