David Fanning talks about finding the story in TV documentary. Learn the rules and the conventions of your craft so you can break them. That’s how you wing walk. That’s how you take … Read more
On a late fall weekend in 2001, the Nieman Program on Narrative Journalism convened its first conference. More than 800 journalists traveled to Cambridge, Massachusetts to take part in three days of interactive seminars, lectures and readings with many of the nation’s leading practitioners. By the end of the conference, there had been 26 seminars, four plenary sessions, and three group readings, and it is from words spoken at these sessions that Nieman Reports compiled the report that follows. — Melissa Ludtke Read more
McPhee’s New Yorker article, “Travels in Georgia,” is a joint profile of a man and a woman. McPhee is following them along through the state of Georgia, watching what they do. Doesn’t tell us much about them. We know they’re … Read more
Adam Hochschild focused on the basics of writing narratives. Pick compelling characters and breathe life into them. Think in scenes, as if you were a filmmaker. Create suspense by strategically withholding information or by setting up and then delaying conflicts. Read more
Jon Franklin got me to sit up right away as he talked about things like “character” and “plot”—words I’d associated with novels and short fiction, not journalism. These, he said, were important elements to any good story, fiction or nonfiction. Read more
Ideas and insights, opinions and suggestions—all of these surfaced again and again in the swirl of presentations. What follows are snippets from these sessions that didn’t find a home on the previous pages but merit consideration. ‘So what is … Read more
“What Price the News” was written a couple of years ago but certainly resonates today because of the subject matter. The writer is a young man named Ian Stewart. And at the beginning of the story, Ian is drifting in … Read more
Tim O’Brien had the bad fortune to be caught up in the Vietnam War, and he’s written about it several times, and he wrote a book called “The Things They Carried.” There’s a passage in his book where he’s talking … Read more
