RNC vs. DNC: A Reading List Examining the Conventions

Ten stories examining the Republican and Democratic conventions.

Source: Longreads
Published: Jul 31, 2016

Dorchester County

The shameful history of slavery in Dorchester County, Maryland has caused some locals to resist further public recognition and historical preservation of escaped slave and abolitionist Harriet Tubman’s work here on the Underground Railroad.

Published: Jul 14, 2016
Length: 10 minutes (2,711 words)

How One Colorado Man Disappeared While Hunting For Hidden Treasure

A man goes missing near Santa Fe, New Mexico after searching for an eccentric arts and antiquities collector’s buried treasure.

Source: 5280 Magazine
Published: Jul 26, 2016
Length: 30 minutes (7,525 words)

Dark Waters

When people started stealing Oregon sturgeon from government hatcheries, people couldn’t figure out why. A native Oregonian uses the theft and her own sexual coming of age story to explore the history, life, conservation and poaching of the sturgeon, North America’s largest freshwater fish, and one of the world’s most ancient.

Published: Jan 19, 2016
Length: 17 minutes (4,303 words)

A Moment Like This Used to Get a Black Man Killed

Obama’s Democratic National Convention speech: meditations on a president’s grace under pressure, his uniquely American brand of cool, and the pace of progress.

Source: Esquire
Published: Jul 28, 2016
Length: 7 minutes (1,951 words)

A Terrifying Journey Through the World’s Most Dangerous Jungle

Jason Motlagh joins US-bound migrants as they traverse the guerilla-ruled area around the Colombia-Panama border.

Source: Outside
Published: Jul 19, 2016
Length: 38 minutes (9,688 words)

‘How’s Amanda?’

A story of a mother and daughter facing heroin addiction.

Author: Eli Saslow
Source: Washington Post
Published: Jul 23, 2016
Length: 23 minutes (5,892 words)

The Long, Hot Summer Hillary Became a Politician

A look back at Hillary Clinton’s early years in Arkansas, leading education reform.

Source: Politico
Published: Jul 27, 2016
Length: 12 minutes (3,212 words)

A Mormon Tycoon Wants to Build Joseph Smith’s Mega-Utopia in Vermont

A wealthy Mormon engineer envisions a sustainable, high-tech, high-density community of 20,000 people in rural Vermont.

Published: Jul 20, 2016
Length: 15 minutes (3,766 words)

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bod

Influenced by media, Canadians, like Americans, suffer from unrealistic standards of beauty and conflicted feelings about their naked, natural bodies. One woman in Toronto runs the Body Pride workshops to help reverse that.

Source: Maisonneuve
Published: Jul 26, 2016
Length: 9 minutes (2,415 words)