Soundings

I spent my childhood in a tiny pink house in suburban Chicago, surrounded by noise. The television blared theme songs from my grandmother’s soap operas. My grandfather’s fire department scanner…

When I hear teachers or soldiers or ministers talk about what they do as a calling, I get it. Though the public may not believe it, journalists carry a similar…

My mom, like most Indigenous women of her time, didn’t really value Western education. It was my dad, an Italian son of immigrants, who pushed me to go to university.…

"Journalism became a vehicle to pursue the kinds of narratives that first got me interested in history: those that question the official story and defy power"

"Journalism became a vehicle to pursue the kinds of narratives that first got me interested in history: those that question the official story and defy power"

As a reporter, I have written numerous stories about people. I hope I got as many stories right as I could, but I’m sure I missed many, too. The one…

It’s odd that we forget people in our reporting. We’re people. Everyone around us is a person, however annoying their habits might be. People want to know about people; gossip…

I didn’t always know I wanted to be a reporter. I came at it sideways, in college, after deciding to major in creative writing. There’s no career path for writing…

I came into journalism in a roundabout way. I was a voracious reader as a child, growing up in middle-class Nairobi, partly as a retreat from a difficult home situation…

The very first time I viewed a William H. Johnson painting, the work moved me so deeply, I immediately declared him my favorite artist.I was barely a teenager. I didn’t…