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#writing #journalism

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Taking an idea, a central point, and pursuing it, turning it into a story that tells something about the way we live today, is the essence of narrative journalism. — location: 344 ^ref-60575

You don’t “hype up” in the wake of tragedy. You underwrite, letting the events speak for themselves. — location: 355 ^ref-7657

When you find a reporter whose work you admire, break his or her code. Examine the story and figure out what the reporter did, where he or she went, how that reporter constructed the story, and why it worked. — location: 386 ^ref-21443

It is just as unsatisfactory to constantly underrate yourself as it is to give yourself too much credit. — location: 1698 ^ref-26442

Thinking too much about the present will lead you to ask the wrong questions about the past. Take the past on its own terms, not on ours. — location: 1830 ^ref-20013

You need to provide readers two things in this sort of journalism: a detailed picture of the social setting and at least some insight into the psychology of the principals. I think of the setting as a horizontal plane and the individual as a vertical plane. The line created by their intersection—there lies the story. — location: 3070 ^ref-46601

I write in the first person a lot. The “I” in my stories is the reader’s proxy. My great ambition is to take readers out of their comfort zones and put them in positions of discomfort. I want them to see and smell and taste and touch and hear the things that I did in their place as the reporter. — location: 3184 ^ref-58294