How do some of the best narrative journalists find the stories they report and write about? This episode focuses on how four different reporters landed on stories that are still read and talked about today.
In the first part, Luke Dittrich talks about how he ultimately decided to head to Joplin, Missouri, to report and write a story for Esquire that won him a National Magazine Award.
In Part II, Eli Saslow of the Washington Post talks about how he landed himself in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, for the first piece in his Pulitzer Prize winning series on food stamps.
In Part III, Pamela Colloff discusses the genesis of her National Magazine Award winning series The Innocent Man. She wrote that piece for Texas Monthly. Colloff is now a senior reporter at ProPublica and a staff writer at The New York Times Magazine.
Finally, Part IV is a snippet of a TedX Tampa talk that Michael Kruse gave, in which he discusses his story about Kathryn Norris, a woman who disappeared and was missing for 16 months, before someone found her body — in her own home.
The first three parts all come from Gangrey: The Podcast archives. As usual, you can listen to every episode of the podcast, for free, on the website.
Gangrey: The Podcast 