Mark Obbie's Blog, page 28
May 10, 2014
On the nightstand: Saturday, 5/10/14
Today’s good reads and reporting coups in criminal-justice journalism: I often find gems when I peer into the profiles of Twitter accounts that I follow, that follow me, or that I run across in retweets. A couple clicks into Julia Dahl’s profile, I learned how the CBS crime reporter and first-time novelist explains her dedication […]
May 9, 2014
On the nightstand: Friday, 5/9/14
Today’s good reads and reporting coups in criminal-justice journalism: You can tell that New York Times columnist/reporter Jim Dwyer has the independence that a police-beat reporter might envy. Otherwise, he’d probably never have written something so provocative to police as this article questioning why, in two “freakish, pointless crimes,” the charges filed vary so widely […]
Heroin, day by day
The next time we hear a legislator or tough-on-crime advocate argue for longer sentences and sterner enforcement to address the heroin “crisis,” wave this Susan Dominus story in his or her face. Dominus introduces us to “Ann,” a young mother and heroin addict. Watching her struggle, and watching her parents’ anguish, exposes readers to a […]
Writing to die for
Writers include scenes in their stories to make a point. Good writers don’t surround that point with flashing lights and arrows calling attention to it. They hope an attentive reader will absorb it, get it (if not immediately, then eventually), and appreciate the subtlety. That’s what happens in this New York Times Magazine story by Rollo […]
May 8, 2014
On the nightstand: Thursday, 5/8/14
Today’s good reads and reporting coups in criminal-justice journalism: Longform.org tweeted a link to an oldie that’s come back in the news: the great Skip Hollandsworth’s Texas Monthly 1998 article, “Midnight in the Garden of East Texas,” which was turned into the film Bernie (which, ack, I hadn’t heard of), which begat yesterday’s stories on the decision […]
Half-baked in Big Bend
As a certified fan of long-form crime narratives, and of Outside magazine’s deserved reputation for great storytelling, I was predisposed to like Rachel Monroe’s feature on the death of a popular bartender in Terlingua, an end-of-the-world outpost in Texas’ Big Bend country. Indeed, the story resonates with rich atmospherics: the beautiful, spare, desert; the free […]
May 7, 2014
On the nightstand: Wednesday, 5/7/14
Today’s good reads and reporting coups in criminal-justice journalism: Slate’s Emily Bazelon wrote the book — er, the long-form magazine feature — on the tricky nature of compensating child-porn victims for their injuries. So take it from her when she says Congress’ quick action in proposing a legislative fix to a problem made more evident […]
May 6, 2014
On the nightstand: Tuesday, 5/6
Today’s good reads and reporting coups in criminal-justice journalism: On The Wall Street Journal photo blog, photographer Andrew Burton (a recent Newhouse School graduate) showed a powerful series depicting aging, infirm California prison inmates. Regardless of whether they all deserve to die in prison — and one might question whether they all do, considering one was […]
May 5, 2014
On the nightstand: Monday, 5/5
Today’s good reads and reporting coups in criminal-justice journalism: Scoop-hungry reporters beware: Jerry Adler shows in his Pacific Standard cover story how the behavioral-science sausage gets made. The New Yorker‘s Rachel Aviv tells a disturbing and compelling story about a “pill mill” doctor blamed for many patients’ deaths. (The story is for subscribers only.) His sentence: […]
A survivor takes on A&E
About four months ago, I blogged a mixed review of a Miami New Times story by Terrence McCoy about the A&E true-crime show “The First 48.” I wrote at the time that McCoy made a strong case that the show produces bad journalism — all hype and macho posturing about police work — but hadn’t […]
