At a time when local newsrooms are shrinking or closing entirely — and Trump is calling the news media “the enemy of the people” — Zach Baron visits the reporters and editors of The Fresno Bee in California’s Central Valley, where Republican Rep. Devin Nunes declared war on the paper.
2018
Posted inEditor's Pick
Susan Potter Will Live Forever
When Susan Potter died of pneumonia at the age of 87, she donated her body to the Visible Human Project so it could be sliced and photographed. The images would be digitized and used to create a virtual cadaver that medical students could use to dissect and reassemble with the stroke of a few keys.
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Itsy-Bitsy, Teenie-Weenie, Very Litigious Bikini
In 2014 Ipek Irgit’s bikinis took Instagram by storm. Several years, and lawsuits, later it’s not so clear they’re hers.
Posted inEditor's Pick
Prime and Punishment
Lucrative placements within coveted search ranks on Amazon’s Marketplace are incentivizing sellers to do whatever it takes to undercut each other — not by competing on price or quality, but by creatively sabotaging the listing above theirs. Bad actors plant obviously fraudulent five-star reviews on popular listings to trigger penalties, or set rivals’ products on fire to frame them […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
How to Thrive as a Sober Queer Through the Holigays
In a piece that’s part personal essay and part service journalism, Molly Priddy shares how challenging it initially was going home for the holidays just after she got sober — and how it’s gotten better over the years. She also offers tips suggesting how others avoiding alcohol might get through the end-of-year forced family fun […]
Posted inEditor's Pick
How to Grieve Your Friend and Mentor
In this moving personal essay, Amy Jo Burns writes about how the death of her writing mentor, Louise DeSalvo, has affected her, and how reading Alexander Chee’s How to Write an Autobiographical Novel, and Sigrid Nunez’s The Friend helped her process her grief.
Posted inHighlight, Nonfiction, Quote Posts, Quotes, Science & Nature
The Bat-Borne Virus That Threatens to Become the Next Pandemic
Steven Bedard, a former field biologist, travels around Bangladesh with a team of public health investigators studying Nipah, a bat-borne virus with the potential to become the next pandemic.
Posted inArts & Culture, Story
How Famous Women Clean Up After Men
When men like Offset and Kanye West make a mess, women like Cardi B and Kim Kardashian West are there to restore order. But emotion work is not a woman’s job.
Posted inEditor's Pick
The Bootleg Video Vans of the Soviet Union
Before the U.S.S.R. disbanded, Soviet-made propaganda led many Russian kids to fetishize the authentic American films that the government censored. Pushed into the underground, resourceful Soviets played overdubbed, bootlegged copies of these films on VCRs inside mini-vans they turned into mobile theaters. This is how many Soviets learned English.
Posted inNonfiction
Longreads Best of 2018: Food Writing
We asked writers and editors to choose some of their favorite stories of the year in various categories. Here is the best in food writing.