Tips for reporting and telling stories with traditional and new tools, including “Writing Tools” by Roy Peter Clark.

Tools

What writers see in life, language and literature

At the end of this essay, I will be asking for your help in writing a proposal for a new book: “What Writers See: In Life, Language, and Literature.”

What do I mean when I ask the question “What do … Read more

Tools:
7 Comments

Wednesday, May 08, 2013

Booksandwriting3

How some narratives can benefit from more translucence, less transparency

Transparency, transparency, transparency. Say it loud and there’s music playing. Say it soft and it’s almost like praying.

Transparency is the new pillar of responsible practice, inside and outside of journalism — including at Poynter. When it comes to reporting … Read more

Tools:
2 Comments

Thursday, May 02, 2013

Screen Shot 2013-05-02 at 8.12.04 AM

When police wouldn’t release a gang map, Toledo Blade crime reporter drew her own

When the Toledo Police Department refused to release a gang map that showed which gangs claimed which neighborhoods in the small city 60 miles southwest of Detroit, crime reporter Taylor Dungjen decided to create her own.

That’s the short version … Read more

Tools:
1 Comment
Chat

How to include narrative elements in a hard news story

During this week’s writing chat, we talked with Boston Globe reporter Eric Moskowitz about his story that describes the experience of a young man who was carjacked by the Boston bombing suspects.

Poynter’s Roy Peter Clark praised Moskowitz earlier this Read more

Tools:
0 Comments

Tuesday, Apr. 30, 2013

Computer mouse on the laptop

10 digital tools journalists can use to improve their reporting, storytelling

Digital tools help produce quality content online, but it can be tough figuring out where to start. Here are 10 online tools that can help improve journalists’ reporting and storytelling, and engage readers in multimedia.

Reporting resources: These tools can Read more

Tools:
2 Comments
Booksandwriting2

Boston Globe reporter shows how news writing can unfold ‘like a story in a book’

A story from the Boston Globe has been getting a lot of buzz, and rightly so. It was written by Eric Moskowitz, and describes the harrowing experience of a young Chinese man carjacked by the two Boston Marathon bombers. … Read more

Tools:
16 Comments

Friday, Apr. 26, 2013

Words - Ideas

The more diverse your brainstorming group, ‘the fresher your story ideas will be’

Working with writers can be tough: from thinking of creative story ideas that haven’t been covered or written 10 times yet, to justifying a decision about running a particular photograph or identifying a source. Brainstorming with a diverse group of … Read more

Tools:
1 Comment

Wednesday, Apr. 24, 2013

Chat

From ancient Greece to modern Boston, how stories help us survive

The events of recent days — from the bombing of the Boston marathon to the explosion of the fertilizer plant in Texas — should remind us of the power of stories. In a daily sense and over the course of … Read more

Tools:
1 Comment

Thursday, Apr. 18, 2013

Vague descriptions in Boston bombings hurt more than they help

My colleague Al Tompkins reminds journalists to remember the case of Richard Jewell as they cover the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombings. Jewell was the security guard wrongly accused of the bombing at the 1996 Olympic games in Atlanta.… Read more

Tools:
1 Comment

Thursday, Apr. 11, 2013

How an award-winning investigative reporter tracked killings in Iraq

Investigative Reporters and Editors’ list of 2012 award winners, released Wednesday, honors journalists who exposed shoddy care for the elderly and mentally ill, spotlighted inept and corrupt government officials, discovered a broken school truancy system, found … Read more

Tools:
0 Comments

Related Tweets