News organizations, credibility, and who gets the exclusive interview.
journalism
Posted inAuthor Notes, Nonfiction
How the ACLU Came to Publish a Powerful Piece of Investigative Journalism
“Out of the Darkness” chronicles how two psychologists teamed up with the CIA to devise a torture program and experiment on human beings.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
C.J. Chivers’ Particular Brand of War Journalism
The Times hired Chivers at age thirty-four in 1999 to cover war. That was the handshake, he says. A former Marine officer, he might know how to handle himself in a war zone, the paper figured. What the Times could not have known was that Chivers would develop a brand of journalism unique in the world for, among other […]
Posted inBooks, Nonfiction, Story
The Art of Humorous Nonfiction: A Beer in Brooklyn with the King of the A-Heds
Former Wall Street Journal reporter Barry Newman reflects on 43 years of feature stories that explore the eccentric humanity of our world.
Posted inBooks, Nonfiction
The Art of Humorous Nonfiction: A Beer in Brooklyn with the King of the A-Heds
Former Wall Street Journal reporter Barry Newman reflects on 43 years of feature stories that explore the eccentric humanity of our world.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Pseudonyms, Sources, and Jon Krakauer’s ‘Missoula’
Only one of the rape victims in Krakauer’s book, “Cecilia Washburn,” is identified with a pseudonym. “And I didn’t interview her,” Krakauer said. (Krakauer says he discussed the possibility of an interview with Washburn’s attorney multiple times, but she replied each time that her client likely would not consent to an interview.) The rest of […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
‘Dr. V’ Writer Caleb Hannan Speaks for the First Time About What Went Wrong
“It didn’t need to exist. And that was not something that occurred to me in the process of reporting.” Out of everyone who read an early draft of “Dr. V’s Magical Putter,” only Caleb Hannan’s wife asked him the most critical question of all: Did this story even need to exist? Hannan spoke publicly for […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
‘A Sweatshop for Trustafarians’ Inside Vice’s Williamsburg Headquarters
Vice’s headquarters are a 30,000-square-foot amalgamation of converted warehouses in Williamsburg, Brooklyn—hipster capital of the US. [Vice co-founder Shane Smith], who was not made available for an interview with CJR despite repeated requests, has called his office of 425 workers “a sweatshop for trustafarians” and the culture “like an incestuous family.” The interior matches Vice’s style: gritty […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Brussels Playbook: Meet the Mike Allen of Europe
A 35-year-old Australian, [Ryan] Heath rises every morning at 4.30 to finish off the day’s Brussels Playbook, which in only a month and a half already goes out to almost 40,000 people. (The site itself received, in May, about 1.7m page views, from just over 700,000 unique visitors. The original Politico receives 7m monthly uniques, though […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Defending Journalist Joseph Mitchell
In the April issue of the New York Review of Books Janet Malcolm wrote about the legendary New Yorker journalist Joseph Mitchell, and responded to Thomas Kunkel’s new Mitchell biography. The biography reveals how Mitchell invented some of his beloved material, which raises questions about larger journalistic standards, betraying readers’ trust, and what effect Mitchell’s invention and embellishment might have on […]