Highlights from this Sunday's Times (5/16/10)

- Elissa Gootman on being a 311 operator in New York

- David Waldstein on the Japanese Mets pitcher Hisanori Takahashi's Spanish skills, which fellow Mets have have helped him acquire

Highlights from this Sunday's Times (5/9/10)

The Châteaux de Lastours. (David Yoder for The New York Times)

- Tony Perrottet on food and castles in Languedoc, France

Highlights from this Sunday's Times (5/2/10)

- Michael Winerip on Bernard Ros, overseer of French chefs

- Pico Iyer on William T. Vollmann's latest book, "Kissing the Mask"

Highlights from this Sunday's Times (4/25/10)

Allen. (Larry Fink for The New York Times)

- Mark Leibovich on Mike Allen, the über-workaholic behind Playbook

Highlights from this Sunday's Times (4/18/10)

- Cynthia Gorney on taking estrogen

Highlights from this Sunday's Times (4/11/10)

- Alexei Barrionuevo on James Cameron in the Brazilian Amazon

Highlights from this Sunday's Times (4/4/10)

McQueen in 2002. (David Bailey)

- Cathy Horyn on possible causes of Alexander McQueen's suicide

- Alana Newhouse on the misuse of Roman Vishniac's photography

Highlights from this Sunday's Times (3/28/10)

- Verlyn Klinkenborg on the Top End of Australia

Highlights from this Sunday's Times (3/21/10)

Shooting "Treme." (Peter van Agtmael/Magnum, for The New York Times)

- Wyatt Mason on David Simon's new television show, "Treme"

- Carl Hulse, Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Jeff Zeleny on the way the Democrats in Congress and the White House stopped the downfall of health-care reform

Highlights from this Sunday's Times (3/14/10)

The changing facade of 104-106 Bowery. (Left, center, New York City Municipal Archives; right, Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times)

- Dan Barry on the history of a building on the Bowery

- Luc Sante on David Shields' new book, "Reality Hunger: A Manifesto"

- Darryl Brock on baseball's influence on Mark Twain, and Rick Burton on the sport's role in the life of Stephen Crane

Andrew Astleford wins first place in Hearst Journalism Awards

Congrats to our dear friend, Andrew Astleford, who won first place last week in the Sports Writing category of the William Randolph Hearst Foundation's Journalism Awards Program. His story, "Detour to Destiny: Arena of Dreams," was published in the Columbia Missourian and produced during an Intermediate Writing course at the Missouri School of Journalism, taught by Jacqui Banaszynski.

Astleford's story shows the human side of dreams not-yet dropped, and how a player's success is more meaningful to him than just the momentary glory of the 100-yard stage.

After graduating in December, Astleford moved to New Orleans, La., and now freelances for publications such as ESPN.com and New Orleans Times-Picayune.

CJR: The journalistic education of Gabriel García Márquez

The Columbia Journalism Review had a wonderful article about the role journalism had on the budding career of Gabriel García Márquez. New Journalism has been gaining ground in recent decades, but even in the 1950's, newspapers saw readers' excitement with the story behind the facts.

The renowned author wrote a fourteen-part series for the Columbian newspaper, El Espectador, where he worked when he was 27. During the course of the series, the publication's circulation "almost doubled."


García Márquez had only been toying with some small fiction pieces at the time, but worked mostly as a journalist. This series, about the personal account of a shipwreck survivor gave him the liberty to repeat the tale is telling detail. Here's one sentence from the series:

“'Soon the sky turned red, and I continued to search the horizon,' recalls Velasco (or at least Velasco being channeled by the young reporter). 'Then it turned a deep violet as I kept watching. To one side of the life raft, like a yellow diamond in a wine-colored sky, the first star appeared, immobile and perfect.'"

Another thing to take from this story into the present is that audiences want to be entertained, but I don't think that has to be achieved by forsaking fact for gossip or by producing additional soft news. I think it comes through superb writing, as it should. And the fact that the newspaper doubled its readership through just this series alone really says that if the audience is enjoying itself, it's willing to buy whatever gives it the satisfaction worth an hour or so. Publications should stop trying to just get people to buy the facts from them, but convince them through good storytelling that the facts are worth the time and money they put forth to read a story.

Even aside from journalism, I think it's an important point to make note of another narrative journalist of last century who turned later to fiction: Ernest Hemingway, who wrote for Missouri's own Kansas City Star. Check out some stories of his stories from the newspaper here.

I'd say it at least has something to do with narrative journalist's ability to grasp real life events in a telling way, since all good fiction at least resonates with some part of reality.

Highlights from this Sunday's Times (3/7/10)

Steve Cohen. (Richard Perry/The New York Times)

- N. R. Kleinfield on Steve Cohen, New York's Millionaires' Magician

- Elizabeth Green on ways to help teachers improve

- Laurie Goodstein on defecting from the Church of Scientology

History. Hard Work. Kansas. And basketball.

As a kid, I remember playing basketball for hours in a day: shooting buckets until I couldn't see the hoop for the dark; ball-handling drills in my basement when it was too cold to go outside; shooting free throws even while my fingertips were dry, cracked and bleeding.

I cannot claim to know exactly what life is like in Larned or Chanute, but this story by Kent Babb in Sunday's Kansas City Star is still incredibly emotive for me. As a Kansan, a history major and a lover of college basketball, I still didn't know how rich my home state's heritage is where this sport is concerned.

Even if you don't love basketball — or have never visited a town of less than 20,000 — I'm sure you can enjoy this piece. With just the first graph, how could you not?

"They say the soul of basketball is out there in a place where grain elevators are
skyscrapers and barbed wire gives an order to things."

Some may find it saccharine, but I assure you it's real. There's a lot of truth in this thing.

PLEASE read it HERE.

Highlights from this Sunday's Times (2/28/10)

Ravitch. (James Estrin/The New York Times)

- David M. Halbfinger on New York State's "Mr. Fix-it," Lt. Gov. Richard Ravitch

- Laura M. Holson on a night out with Whoopi Goldberg and Vogue's editor at large, André Leon Talley

- Dan Barry on things people did in Norwich, Vt., to prepare for the homecoming of the town's latest medal winner, Hannah Kearney

Highlights from this Sunday's Times (2/21/10)

Bishop.

- Shaila Dewan, Stephanie Saul and Katie Zezima on Dr. Amy Bishop's quickly changing behavior, which manifested itself finally in the killing of three of her colleagues at the University of Alabama at Huntsville

- Nick Bilton on his experiments with a fledgling Web site, Chatroulette

- Elissa Gootman on Freda Rosenfeld, Brooklyn's breast-feeding maven

Highlights from this Sunday's Times (2/14/10)

Marines in Marja. (Tyler Hicks/The New York Times)

- Chris Chivers on the inexperienced Marine Company K's surge through Marja, Afghanistan

- Dan Barry on people's struggles in Ciudad Juarez, which often cause moves across the border to El Paso
- Alex Witchel on the director David Cromer

Highlights from this Sunday's Times (2/7/10)

The figure skater Rachael Flatt. (Ryan McGinley)

The freestyle skier Jeret (Speedy) Peterson. (Ryan McGinley)

The figure skater Evan Lysacek. (Ryan McGinley)

- The photographer Ryan McGinley on athletes in the 2010 Olympics

- Michael Sokolove on the Chicago-born long-track speed skater Shani Davis

- Bill Pennington on Minnesota-born alpine skier Lindsey Vonn

Wash. Post: "An erogenous zoning Violation"

Above was the headline as it appeared in print (the online head's not as creative). I just wanted to share this, because it's a great example of narrative coming from — of all things — a planning and zoning meeting.

Enjoy!

Here's the link.

Highlights from this Sunday's Times (1/31/10)

Omar Hammami. (The Hammami Family)

- Andrea Elliott on the radicalization of the Alabama-born Shabab figure Omar Hammami

- Michael Wilson on the longtime New York news anchor Ernie Anastos
- Bruce Weber on Willie Mays, 78, who finally allowed someone to write a biography of him

Highlights from this Sunday's Times (1/24/10)

Frank Serpico, 1971. (Librado Romero/The New York Times)

- Corey Kilgannon on the aging Frank Serpico, who spoke out against corruption in the New York Police Department

- Walt Bogdanich on mistakes made during radiation procedures

- C. J. Chivers on a Marine's encounter with a buried I.E.D. in Afghanistan

Highlights from this Sunday's Times (1/17/10)

People gather to collect the remains of a store in the La Saline neighborhood of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. (Damon Winter/The New York Times)

- Simon Romero and Marc Lacey on looting in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, in the aftermath of a 7.0-magnitude earthquake

- N. R. Kleinfield on 24 hours at a Clean Rite Center laundromat in Brooklyn

- Adam Nossiter on the evolution of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the would-be underwear bomber

Highlights from this Sunday's Times (1/10/10)

George Kramer. (Ruth Fremson/The New York Times)

- Saki Knafo on his second cousin, George Kramer, 71, who was deemed mentally retarded as a child and now works in a Brooklyn hardware store

- Douglas Martin on Freya von Moltke, the last living member of an anti-Nazi group in Kreisau, formerly in East Germany and now in Poland, during World War II

- Dan Bilefsky on Fethiye Cetin, who was raised as a Turkish Muslim but was born an Armenian Christian

Highlights from this Sunday's Times (1/3/10)

Marc Joseph's Foreclosure Tours 'R' Us bus. (Richard Perry/The New York Times)

- Peter S. Goodman on the real estate mess in Cape Coral, Florida

- Joseph Berger on Harold Fernandez, who was an undocumented immigrant studying at Princeton

- Jan Hoffman on the 15-year-old pop star Justin Bieber

Highlights from this Sunday's Times (12/27/09)

Gloria Scott, who was dying of lung cancer and taking sedatives. (Ozier Muhammad/The New York Times)

- Anemona Hartocollis on the use of drug-induced sleep through sedatives in end-of-life care
- Gia Kourlas on two marching bands, those of Ohio State University and Southern University
- Alan Feuer on bail monitors

Highlights from this Sunday's Times (12/20/09)

Bart Scott. (Sarah Simonis for The New York Times)

- Greg Bishop on New York Jet Bart Scott's trash talking

- Kathryn Shattuck on the evolution of Susan Orlean and John Gillespie's marriage

- Stephanie Rosenbloom on her day as an employee at a Wal-Mart store in New Jersey

Highlights from this Sunday's Times (12/13/09)

Pema Sherpa. (Ozier Muhammad/The New York Times)

- Corey Kilgannon on two Nepalese taxi drivers in New York who lived differently and died differently, albeit on the same night

- Rebecca Cathcart on a night in the life of Mario Lopez, who played the A. C. Slater character on "Saved by the Bell"

- Douglas Martin on Giorgio Carbone, the late prince of Seborga

Highlights from this Sunday's Times (12/6/09)

A crowd at a Pape Diouf performance in Dakar. (Michael Kamber for The New York Times)

- Seth Sherwood on Dakar's fledgling music scene in Dakar

- Peter Baker on the evolution of Obama's latest decision on Afghanistan

- Robin Finn on Len Chenfeld, 18, a Jewish kid from Manhattan who wants to make it in basketball

Highlights from this Sunday's Times (11/29/09)

Texas Hold 'em at the rec center. (Katie Orlinsky for The New York Times)

- N. R. Kleinfield on the recreation center for patients — no doctors or nurses allowed — at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center

- Douglas Martin on Lino Lacedelli, one of the first climbers to reach K2's summit

- Fred Kaplan on previously unreleased recordings of Ella Fitzgerald performing in a small club

Highlights from this Sunday's Times (11/22/09)

Julian Goins jerking. (Stephanie Diani for The New York Times)

- Guy Trebay on the rise of jerking
- Michael Wilson on Judge Mazz, a TV judge who is not an actual judge
- Andrew Meier on Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a Russian oil oligarch imprisoned in 2003 who presents a political challenge to the country's leaders