ProPublica

If you’re a sucker for hearing how great journalists report and structure their work — and who isn’t? — this Q&A with New Yorker write-around specialist Patrick Radden Keefe makes for a perfect Monday read.

It’s always the same: It starts with a series of big beats. If it’s an article, it starts with eight beats on the back of an envelope, so I’ll know where the piece starts, I’ll know where I want the transition after the first section to be, and even if I’m feeling my way, I’ll know where the big moments are later on. The reason it’s useful to do the outline on the back of an envelope is that I naturally gravitate to complicated stories — and I like the complication — but I think you need to back away from that and be able to see the topography of the story.

“What happened on that Friday and in the days after, when police rounded up even more kids, would expose an ugly and unsettling culture in Rutherford County, one spanning decades. In the wake of these mass arrests, lawyers would see inside a secretive legal system that’s supposed to protect kids, but in this county did the opposite.”

“The stolen election myth inspired thousands of Trump supporters to take over the Republican Party at the local level, exerting more partisan influence on how elections are run.”

“Inspectors repeatedly found manufacturing and device quality problems with the HeartWare heart pump. But the FDA did not penalize the company, and patients had the device implanted on their hearts without knowing the facts.”

“ProPublica has obtained a vast cache of IRS information showing how billionaires like Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Warren Buffett pay little in income tax compared to their massive wealth — sometimes, even nothing.”

“Brady’s team, though, had been haunted by a serial rapist they could not identify, much less arrest. His DNA had been found in a half-dozen old cases in which evidence remained at the hospital.” The final installment in a three-part “Cold Justice” series.

“They used their car to stay warm when a winter storm brought down the Texas power grid. In a state that doesn’t require carbon monoxide alarms in homes, they had no warning they were poisoning themselves.”

“How an active duty airman tried to start a civil war.”

“The wave of coronavirus cases that swept across the country late last year put even the most battle-hardened EMTs under unprecedented psychological strain.”