Mark Obbie's Blog, page 10
January 14, 2015
On the nightstand: Wednesday, 1/14/15
Recent good reads in criminal-justice journalism, with an emphasis on longform narrative stories and original reporting about crime, crime victims, and reforms in sentencing and prisons: Cheryl Thompson’s data-driven reporting shows that 37 witnesses in the D.C. area were murdered for cooperating with authorities (or when their killers feared they would snitch). Although half had no … Continue reading On the nightstand: Wednesday, 1/14/15 →
January 13, 2015
“On the other side of a shotgun”
Early in the documentary Evolution of a Criminal, filmmaker Darius Clark Monroe decodes the meaning behind the title by revealing exactly what crime he committed. He does that by filming with a hidden camera as he knocks on the door of one of the victims of the bank robbery he committed at age 16, and for which … Continue reading “On the other side of a shotgun” →
January 10, 2015
On the nightstand: Saturday, 1/10/15
Recent good reads in criminal-justice journalism, with an emphasis on longform narrative stories and original reporting about crime, crime victims, and reforms in sentencing and prisons: Tobias Jones traces each step of the elaborate, four-year murder investigation in Italy that used DNA evidence in unlikely ways to charge a suspect in the murder of a young gymnast. (The … Continue reading On the nightstand: Saturday, 1/10/15 →
January 8, 2015
On the nightstand: Thursday, 1/8/15
Recent good reads in criminal-justice journalism, with an emphasis on longform narrative stories and original reporting about crime, crime victims, and reforms in sentencing and prisons: Thanks to a candid personal story told on Facebook by one of my journalism mentors, I learned of Katy Reckdahl’s remarkable feature quantifying and explaining the extent of the damage … Continue reading On the nightstand: Thursday, 1/8/15 →
January 7, 2015
A judge and a reporter
While pawing through boxes of old papers recently, I ran across a letter I received barely a week into my first newspaper job — actually, just an internship — nearly 35 years ago. I hardly remember and cannot find the story I wrote that prompted the letter. And, to be honest, I’d completely forgotten the letter … Continue reading A judge and a reporter →
January 5, 2015
On the nightstand: Monday, 1/5/15
Recent good reads in criminal-justice journalism, with an emphasis on longform narrative stories and original reporting about crime, crime victims, and reforms in sentencing and prisons: John H. Richardson spent days with the father of Mike Brown before and after the Missouri grand-jury decision to produce a portrait of a grieving and dignified working man who … Continue reading On the nightstand: Monday, 1/5/15 →
January 4, 2015
Making certain crimes matter
The latest On the Media program focuses on true crime. Most of the story segments examine the entertaining side of the genre — stories that happen to be true but have more in common with police dramas and mysteries than with the sort of policy-rooted stories I pay more attention to on this blog. The whole … Continue reading Making certain crimes matter →
January 2, 2015
On the nightstand: 1/2/15
Recent good reads in criminal-justice journalism, with an emphasis on longform narrative stories and original reporting about crime, crime victims, and reforms in sentencing and prisons: Sonia Smith continues the tradition of epic Texas (and Texas Monthly) murder stories, this one about a pecan-farming dynasty undone by perhaps the most severe case ever of a sense … Continue reading On the nightstand: 1/2/15 →
December 31, 2014
Hope amid violence
I end this blogging year with a different form of storytelling than what I usually focus on here, the written word (most often lots and lots of words). Because of my respect for copyright, I will only link to the story, a single news photo by Scott Strazzante. But I’ll quote Louise Kiernan, editor of … Continue reading Hope amid violence →
December 30, 2014
On the nightstand: Tuesday, 12/30/14
Recent good reads in criminal-justice journalism, with an emphasis on longform narrative stories and original reporting about crime, crime victims, and reforms in sentencing and prisons: In an abridged version of a new Atlantic e-book, Mark Oppenheimer expands on a New York Times story he wrote about sexual abuse of students by Buddhist monks. He focuses … Continue reading On the nightstand: Tuesday, 12/30/14 →
