Highlights from this Sunday's Times (7/26/09)

Dr. George Tiller. (Mike Hutmacher/The Wichita Eagle)

- David Barstow, winner of the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting, on how abortion opponents struggled to bring down Dr. George Tiller, and eventually succeeded
- Alan Feuer and Allen Salkin on the decline of the wealthy but tormented New York artist Dash Snow
- Edward Wyatt on people who have managed to break in to the world of reality TV

Highlights from this Sunday's Times (7/19/09)

Kestutis Demereckas. (Jenn Ackerman/The New York Times)

- Michael Wilson on Kestutis Demereckas, the man who finds space for ever more plots at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn
- Joe Queenan on literary escorts
- Tom Wolfe on the day NASA failed, as far as he's concerned

Highlights from this Sunday's Times (7/12/09)

Lloyd Gaines. (Associated Press)

- David Stout on Lloyd Gaines' contribution to the civil rights movement — opening the way for blacks to be admitted to the University of Missouri School of Law
- Andrea Elliott, winner of the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing, on some Somali-Americans who have been lured to participate in jihad
- Charles Siebert on human-whale interaction

Highlights from this Sunday's Times (7/5/09)

Gay Talese before boarding a ship. (Damon Winter/The New York Times)

- Gay Talese on a boat trip around Manhattan he took
- Corey Kilgannon on what happened to Albert "Short Al" Kaufman, who had called in to the New York sports radio station WFAN every morning for decades but recently has not been heard from
- Mark Leibovich on Gavin Newsom and other people interested in succeeding California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger

My New Life in Obituaries

In writing and in conversation, I like to refer to obituaries. I love obituaries. But if I were to say I always have, I’d be lying.

I would like to say the trajectory of my more-than-passing interest in obituaries and obituary writers began when I was a kid, and, like my mother, I opened our preferred hometown paper, The New York Times, to the obituary page before any other. But the truth is, while I did grow up reading The Times, and while my mom did go to the obituaries first, I was addicted to the sports and automobile sections—the lively, inconsequential ones—in silent protest of my mother’s interest in the new dead.

Mother always said she kept up with the obituaries to make sure she was younger than the people who’d died. But I don’t think her loyalty was so simple.

It has taken me more than a decade to catch up. I have expanded my Times reading to the limit, perusing every section of every paper I can get my hands on. (This summer I live in a Mississippi city where The Times is sold only on Sundays, but when I’m somewhere else I try to obtain a copy to read every day.) I pore over two areas in the newspaper more than any of the others: the front page and the obituary pages.

About a year ago, when obituaries were still of passing interest to me, I checked to see if they concerned people I considered relevant. Usually they did not. But back then, I think, I lacked the compassion, and therefore the courage, to read about people I’d never heard of.

Since then I have become more flexible. Not only do I attempt to read every obituary published in the Sunday paper, but I check the Times’ obituary Web page several times a week, to catch up on the ones I haven’t read.

I keep tabs on who wrote the obituaries—Margalit Fox or Bruce Weber, Peter Keepnews or Christopher Lehmann-Haupt); I figure out what kinds of people they tend to write about, and I look out for exceptions, as well as the bylines of ad-hoc obituary writers. And recently I have been learning about famous Times obituary writers like Alden Whitman and Robert McG. Thomas Jr. I save up their greatest hits for times when I must be inspired or fascinated. (As a young reporter, I’m awestruck by the challenge to summarize a life, never mind an important one, and by logical progression I have profound sympathy for obituary writers. Small wonder I was thrilled to come across an essay by Gay Talese called “Mr. Bad News,” which is chock full of information on Whitman’s life and example of his work.)

To feed my addiction, I have signed up to receive an e-mail from an outfit named Celebrity Death Beeper whenever a significant figure passes. When I get such an e-mail, I check The Times’ Web site, anxious to see what the newspaper has put together.

For me, a standard Times obituary will make me appreciate a person I’ve never met (unless, of course, I have met him or her). A good Times obituary will reveal to me a world about which I knew little if anything, or turn me into a fan of a person, place or thing, or make me wonder, “Why didn’t I know about this person until now?” A great Times obituary will challenge me to make more of my life than I was planning to.

My obsession with obituaries has driven me to look forward to deaths, and especially big deaths, which cause The Times to bring out work by some of its most talented reporters, like Robert D. McFadden.

The excitement I derive from news of a major death has caused friends and acquaintances to call me morbid.

I don’t care.

If anything, I’d defend it as a symbol of care and curiosity. Obituaries help me understand more about the world and human nature. After all, my continuing consumption of obituaries has made me more and more confident of the power of a single individual.

In the last two weeks, we have been pelted with celebrity deaths, and consequently, corresponding obituaries. Ed McMahon went, and Farah Fawcett, and Michael Jackson, and Billy Mays, and Karl Malden. . . . Each was fascinating in his or her own right, but in the public conscious they may immortally be considered together. I wonder why we received such an onslaught.

Whatever the reasons, I’m not a big fan of actors, but I know many people who are. If any of them read an obituary in the last few days and decided the form is wonderful, I would be thankful, because I would be vindicated. The obituary fan club would have grown. How joyful that would be. My mother would be pleased.

I guess I have to thank her for turning me on to the pleasures of obituary reading.

I don’t think I’m completely morbid; she is one of many people whose deaths I do not look forward to.

Highlights from this Sunday's Times (6/28/09)

Marvin Powell heading to work at the Pontiac Assembly Center on June 10, 2009, at 5:48 a.m. (Damon Winter/The New York Times)

- Jonathan Mahler on Marvin Powell and other middle-class African-Americans being pulled down by the fall of General Motors
- Cara Buckley on the increasingly stiff competition among helado vendors in the Bronx
- Graham Bowley on his and his friend's journey from Islamabad to K2's base camp and back

Praise for the Art of Writing

Quotes can be an effective motivator. Even the simplest statement, when said well and by the right person, can leave an imprint. Every once in a while I'll post up a quote or two with quotes about writing, its craft, and how it's done.

From the Spring Paris Review, in an interview with John Banville:

"The sentence is the greatest invention of civilization. To sit all day long assembling these extraordinary strings of words is a marvelous thing. I couldn't ask for anything better. It's as near to godliness as I can get."

From the Writers on Writing series (NYT), Paul West:
"I have a porous vision, into which anything can get, and I welcome all invaders, knowing the world is richer by far than a wall of identical shoe boxes, whose mildewed aura defeats what's creative."

Highlights from this Sunday's Times (6/21/09)

Rafael Nadal. (Clive Brunskill/Getty Images)

- Cynthia Gorney on Rafael Nadal, the No. 1 tennis player in the world (I think this article could win Gorney a National Magazine Award)
- Walt Bogdanich on "a rogue cancer unit" at the Philadelphia V.A. hospital
- Sarah Garland on a case of Long Island gang violence

And here are a few tardy highlights from last Sunday's Times (6/14/09):

- Daniel J. Wakin on outgoing New York Philharmonic music director Lorin Maazel
- Jon Gertner on the state of California's determination to build a high-speed rail system a la France and Japan
- Katie Thomas on a girls' basketball team in New York and why it, and so many others like it, is not as supported as the average boys' team

Highlights from this Sunday's Times (6/7/09)

- Ellen Barry on Sergei Kanev, a crime reporter in Moscow whose life is punctuated by death threats
- Alan Feuer on the fall of the great New York law firms
- Deborah Sontag on two divergent Muslim artists in New York

And here's a bonus: my mother's recommendation.

- Scott Malcomson on Shakira's efforts to improve early-childhood education in South America

Highlights from this Sunday's Times (5/31/09)

- Michael Brick on water safari in Texas
- Peter Baker on Bill Clinton, who has now spent more time out of the White House than he did in there, and how his legacy has changed since Barack Obama became president
- Lizette Alvarez and Michael Wilson on New York City projects in the old days, as Sonia Sotomayor, Obama's Supeme Court justice nominee, remembers them — before they got their bad rap

Highlights from this Sunday's Times (5/24/09)

- Sara Corbett and photographer Gillian Laub on the segregated proms for students of Montgomery County High School in Mount Vernon, Georgia
- Lynn Hirschberg on Conan O'Brien's move from New York to L.A.
- N. R. Kleinfield on the Rev. A. R. Bernard, who leads the Christian Cultural Center in Brooklyn

Highlights from this Sunday's Times (5/17/09)

- Amy Harmon, winner of the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting, on a family struggling to help their 34-year-old son, Joshua Thompson, avoid death by A.L.S. with an experimental medicine
- Bruce Weber's obituary of Sid Laverents, a peculiar homemade film auteur
- David Segal's profile of Daniel Boulud and his new New York restaurant

The new Newsweek vs. the old New York Review

New York Observer media reporter John Koblin delivers a hip introduction to the revamped Newsweek and its hotshot editor, Jon Meacham, in a voice that calls to mind Talese & Wolfe.

Contrast it with Janny Scott's 1997 New York Times profile of The New York Review of Books' top dog, Robert Silvers.

Highlights from this Sunday's Times (5/10/09)

- Margalit Fox's obituary of Martha Mason, who spent most of her life in an iron lung
- David Segal's hilarious debut consumer-advocacy column, The Haggler (notice his perfect use of the third person when referring to himself)
- Tamar Lewin's American Album on Miles Woolley, a teacher at a Miami high school who is opposed to military recruitment there because of his experience in the Vietnam war

A new age for the Missourian?

In my Intermediate Writing class yesterday, longtime MU journalism professor and narrative cheerleader Steve Weinberg spoke up about an interesting trend he observed in the Missourian.

A major narrative appeared on the front page of every Missourian for three editions in a row, he said.

First came a profile of Fred Parry in Sunday's paper. Then came Jessica Showers' profile of Jessica Huang, a fledgling writer of 10-minute plays, on Tuesday. And then on Wednesday came Jenny Rogers' profile of Charles Carter, a regular at the Salvation Army.

They came on the heels of last week's two-part series on the exoneration of Josh Kezer.

Steve said he hadn't seen this kind of work published consistently in the Missourian in decades.

The development, he suggested, could herald a new era of thoughtful, high-quality journalism for the paper. He seemed to read it as a sign of hope not only for it but also for print journalism itself.

I hope this is not an isolated development. I hope the Missourian will continue traveling in this direction for a while.

It's no surprise each of the three profiles topped the most-read list for several hours. People read good stories. People want stories. People need stories. The title of Joan Didion's nonfiction collection, I remember nearly daily, is "We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live." If we want to live, we're going to need stories.

Highlights from this Sunday's Times (5/3/09)

- Douglas Martin's obituary of New Age pioneer John Michell
- Outgoing South Asia Bureau Chief Somini Sengupta on Calcutta, her hometown
- Chip McGrath on Fenway Park

2009 National Magazine Awards

Check out the works that won 'em.

P.S. Chris Jones won the one for feature writing.

Esquire writer Chris Jones praises narrative

He is to become a professor at the U. of Montana. Read a journalism student's interview with him here.

Shout-out to Andrew Astleford

News of this year's UWIRE 100 best college journalists went over Romenesko yesterday. Two of the 100 were Mizzou students. One of the two, Andrew Astleford, occasionally contributes sports stories to the Missourian that I love to read. I'm confident he'll be the kind of person the MU j-school will brag about churning out for years to come.

This is actually the second consecutive year Andrew made the cut for the UWIRE 100.

Andrew covered the MU Tiger football team last year and in 2007 with an understanding of what the real story was. He is what I might call a reliable narrator. When I read his stories, I don't look for quotes. I like to sit tight and listen to his narration.

Examples:

- When the Tigers lost the 2008 Big 12 conference game to Oklahoma.

- When the '07 Tigers were so good, they called to mind the '69 Tigers.

- When hype surrounded Columbia, Mo., as the 2008 season began in the shadow of an amazing one in 2007.

UPDATE: Andrew has won this year's Atwater Writing Contest, which the MU j-school administers. On behalf of the contest committee, Columbia Missourian editor Liz Brixey writes:

With pleasure, we announce that Andrew Astleford has won this year's Atwater Writing Contest.

Submissions were exceptionally strong this year and made for some terrific reading, and we thank everyone who entered.

Andrew wins for three stories: "Seeking Relief, McHale's Life Took a Fatal Turn," about the late Tampa Bay Buccaneer Tom McHale, published in The Washington Post; "A Pitcher's Dual Dreams of Delivering at Sea, on Hill," about Atlanta Braves pitcher Mitch Harris, also in the Post; and "Daniel stayed true to his Tigers commitment," about the quarterback's loyalty to MU even when Texas came calling, in the Columbia Missourian.

The stories showed wonderful descriptive writing based on detailed reporting as well as strong use of dialogue. "He gets me in the beginning and takes me all the way to the end of every story," one judge said.

Andrew, who comes from Dodge City, Kan., is in the magazine sequence and plans to graduate in December. His summer schedule includes the Poynter Fellowship for College Journalists in St. Petersburg, Fla., and the Midwest Writers Workshop at Ball State University in Muncie, Ind.

Andrew spent two semesters at the Columbia Missourian under sports editor Greg Bowers and interned at the Orlando Sentinel and The Washington Post. Andrew placed 12th in 2008 and third in 2009 for sports writing in the Hearst Journalism Awards Program and third in 2008 for explanatory writing for the Associated Press Sports Editors. For the past two years, he has been named among the top 100 college journalists in America by uwire.com.

Andrew is now in Jacqui Banaszynski's intermediate writing class, and here is a link to a story from that class that appeared last week in the Missourian about former football Tigers Pig Brown, Darnell Terrell and Xzavie Jackson:

http://www.columbiamissourian.com/stories/2009/04/24/river-city/

Andrew receives $600 and a copy of Eudora Welty's memoir "One Writer's Beginnings," which was a favorite of the late Jim Atwater, former dean and faculty member of the Missouri School of Journalism. This annual prize is given in memory of his love of writing, this J school and its students.

Please join us in congratulating Andrew.

Highlights from this Sunday's Times (4/26/09)

- Rod Nordland on Iraq's false spring

- David Gonzalez on a mixed-status family of Ecuadorian immigrants in Queens

- Deborah Sontag on Larry Fuller, a jazz pianist perennially on the side

Portuguese soup for the writer's soul

OK, so the title I chose for this post is horrendous, but I wanted to write something silly as the headline, so oh well. It's all I had time to think of during my break from this 10-page term paper. One the other hand, I love the headline of the story I'm posting.

I really like the Dan Barry's use of quotes and actions of the main character, Ines De Costa, to show her personality in this piece. It's a nice little narrative piece, so I figured I'd share it with you all.

Here's the article: In a City Under Strain, Ladling Out Fortification

Reporter-Centric Quiz

If you attended Narrative Round Table No. 2, which took place earlier this week, I talked about what I call a reporter-centric way of thinking. But I don't think I made myself clear.

So I prepared an informal quiz, to clarify what I mean, and to help you figure out if you too are reporter-centric.

I should note that I don't intend it to be insulting. If anything, it may be humorous. Actually, I hope you find it funny. And I hope you enjoy it. And so, without further ado, . . .

Please complete the following sentences to figure out how reporter-centric you are, and learn what that might mean for you.

1) When I read the newspaper, . . .
a. I glance at the pictures and scan the headlines.
b. I read each byline and if I recognize the name, I read as much of the article as possible.
c. Wait, wait. You mean that gray thing with words? I don't read that!

2) When researching a topic, the first thing I do is . . .
a. call a friend.
b. Google it.
c. search The New York Times archive.

3) After waking up, the first thing I do is . . .
a. comb my hair, brush my teeth, eat breakfast or go to wherever I need to be.
b. talk to someone and find out what's going on.
c. check nytimes.com, or go out and buy The Times.

4) If a crisis happens, I hope . . .
a. no one is hurt.
b. The Times unleashes one or a few of of its top reporters to tell a strong, interesting story for the next day's paper.
c. to find a TV and see what happened.

5) In the future, I'd like to . . .
a. do some good for the rest of the world.
b. do something I enjoy and get paid well for my work.
c. become a great reporter, just like the people I admire most.

6) The majority of the books on my bookshelf . . .
a. compile stories my favorite reporters wrote. The rest were mentioned in articles I read.
b. are about any old topic. Some are fiction, some are non-fiction. . . . The rest are necessary for my profession or classwork.
c. Um, I don't own books.

7) When someone famous dies, . . .
a. I mourn his or her death and keep him or her in my prayers. Maybe the person will come up in conversation.
b. I look forward to reading his or her obituary in the next day's Times. It'll probably be great. And if I'm lucky, it'll be written by Robert D. McFadden.
c. I don't always hear about it right away. It'll be news to me when people mention the death in conversation.

8) In my free time, . . .
a. Woah, woah—I don't have free time.
b. I talk with other people, write, draw, browse the Internet. . . .
c. I read up on reporters I heard about recently, borrow a book of theirs from the library, or read the day's paper or check the news online.

9) I think most reporters are . . .
a. the most noble people alive.
b. I don't know; I've never met one, or even thought about that. . . .
c. scumbags.

10) Altogether, I think about the world . . .
a. when other people talk about it.
b. now and then.
c. in terms of the reporters who would write about aspects of it.

Now, add up the points you scored for your answers, using this key:

1) a = 1, b = 2, c = 0
2) a = 1, b = 0, c = 2
3) a = 0, b = 1, c = 2
4) a = 0, b = 2, c = 1
5) a = 1, b = 0, c = 2
6) a = 2, b = 1, c = 0
7) a = 1, b = 2, c = 0
8) a = 0, b = 1, c = 2
9) a = 2, b = 0, c = 1
10) a = 1, b = 0, c = 2

If you scored between 0 and 5, you're probably not reporter-centric in the least, and you have nothing to worry about. You probably don't like to read much, and certainly not anything a reporter wrote. You might prefer a scholarly work, or a best-seller, or something a friend or a few websites recommended. You rarely, if ever, pay for a newspaper.

If you scored between 6 and 10, you're not very reporter-centric. You might think now and then about journalism, stories, and things of that nature, but you're not obsessed with them. You may know a reporter or two, and their thinking may have rubbed off on you. You may pick up a newspaper for the experience.

If you scored between 11 and 15, you may be on your way to becoming reporter-centric, or you were in the past and you realized how unusual is to be always thinking about reporters. You might subscribe to a newspaper, or you could be in the habit of picking one up on Sundays. You may know reporters. You might even be a reporter.

If you scored between 16 and 20, you're probably a reporter, and you may know several reporters. You may love reading. You're definitely reporter-centric. Which makes for a lonely but satisfying existence. You learn about reporters and look for their bylines for pleasure. You're in your own little world, and you may care little about the real one. You may wish to seek help.

Pulitzer thoughts

I read two of the Pulitzer prize winning stories from this year and wrote a bit about what I noticed.

One Man’s Military-Industrial-Media Complex

By David Barstow of the New York Times

Read the story

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/washington/30general.html?pagewanted=1&%2359;message%20machine&%2334&%2359&sq&st=cse&scp=5&%2359;%20and%20barstow

my thoughts as a journalist

There is very thorough reporting strung together by consistent chronology in the piece. As a journalist, the question that first arrives in my mind is “how in the world did he get such transparent access with all of these top figures?”

There is a good story arch within that chronology as well. First of course the story shows McCaffrey’s credentials and why he was such a hot commodity. But then it dives into what he did, what it led up to,

I wonder what his notes looked like. How did he interview these high profile people and get information out of them? How did he organize his transcripts and turn into the story I read today?

This story arch is important in showing the complexity of the problems investigated in this piece. If it were just a list of facts, it wouldn’t be at all apparent to how deep the story goes or how much one man’s actions dangerously pervades the system.

As a reader:

It’s interesting: earlier today I was cynically thinking to myself “I wonder how much good ideas or readings actually do. Do they actually incite emotion or promote change of some sort?” But then I read this story and realized how as a citizen it makes me angry to see this going on and how much tax dollars are being wasted by bribes and greed. It’s not like I can do something about it right now, but maybe someone can as legal actions take place and people

It also raises the questions of how do consumers interpret and trust media outlets? Sure, a news organization might be credible, but if it’s unsure how their analysts are benefiting or not benefiting from a particular viewpoint, part of the credibility is stripped away.

Extra note:

I noticed that the winner of investigative reporting category had two corrections on the Times’ Web site, two days apart. It is interesting that a piece of journalism with two corrections was still at such a high caliber to win the most prestigious of journalism awards.

Girl in the Window

By Lane Degregory of the St. Petersburg Times

http://www.tampabay.com/features/humaninterest/article750838.ece#email

The alliteration and word usage at the beginning works powerfully. Often the perception of cops entering a house is one of authority, not stumbling back to the sunlight and vomiting in the yard. The words, too, that the “rookie renched” somehow gives the words more power than just simply saying “the cop threw up.” We were learning about word usage yesterday in intermediate writing, so I’m pleased that I noticed this so quickly and was able to observe the power it had to the beginning.

Detail, detail, detail infiltrates this story creating haunting imagery of what the little girl was forced to endure. I cringed and grimaced at my table in kaldi’s as I read of the conditions. Now THAT'S good writing then.

The reporting in this also was wonderful with the storytelling archetype of Danielle seeming to be a “rising from the ashes” figure.

I thought it’s interesting with how Degregory decided to end with info about the mother’s whereabouts and her background. I’m glad they included that and it seems to fit well at the end.

Story-in-Progress

I've got a draft of a story I'm working on up on my blog that still needs work. I'd love to hear comments from any of you folks about it.

Since I'm spending a month in St. Petersburg, it has been on the brain. This story, "The girl in the window," won a Pulitzer for feature writing this year.

-Seth

Highlights from this Sunday's Times (4/19/09)

I suppose I will take responsibility for reading each Sunday's New York Times and then posting links to articles of note — and providing commentary where warranted. And so the fun begins.

- Chip McGrath on the rising average of the "late" period among writers
- Bruce Weber on a visit to the fancy new Yankee stadium
- Michael Wilson on the cop shack, in which those crazy old New York police reporters work

Beginning the blog

Hello, and welcome to the Narrative Roundtable. Here is a virtual place to begin or continue discussions, link to articles and other things on the Web, and get to know the people in this community.