Storytelling and Social Media
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NIEMAN REPORTS Storytelling and Social Media HANNA, one of the subjects in “Maidan: Portraits from the Black Square,” Kiev, February 2014 Nieman Online From the Archives For some photojournalists, it’s the shots they didn’t take they remember best. In the Summer 1998 issue of Nieman Reports, Nieman Fellows Stan Grossfeld, David Turnley, Steve Northup, Stanley Forman, and Frank Van Riper reflect on the shots they missed, whether by mistake or by choice, in “The Best Picture I Never Took” series. Digital Strategy at The New York Times In a lengthy memo, The New York Times revealed that it hopes to double its “Made in Boston: Stories of Invention and Innovation” brought together, from left, author digital revenue to $800 million by 2020. Ben Mezrich, Boston Globe reporter Hiawatha Bray, author Steve Almond, WGBH’s “Innovation The paper plans to simplify subscriptions, Hub” host Kara Miller, NPR’s “On Point” host Tom Ashbrook, “Our Bodies, Ourselves” improve advertising and sponsorships, co-founder Judy Norsigian, journalist Laurie Penny, and MIT Media Lab director Joi Ito optimize for different mediums, and nieman.harvard.edu, events extend its international reach. No Comments An in-depth look at why seven major news organizations—Reuters, Mic, The Week, Popular Science, Recode, The Verge, and USA Today’s FTW—suspended user comments, the results of that decision, and Innovators “always said how these media outlets are using social no when other people media to encourage reader engagement. said yes and they always 5 Questions: Geraldine Brooks Former Wall Street Journal foreign said yes when other correspondent and Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Geraldine Brooks talks with her old Columbia Journalism School classmate people said no. They saw Ricki Morell about her research and editing process and how journalism informs industries that didn’t her fiction. Annotation Tuesday exist and knew that they “The Things That Carried Him” by Chris Jones won a National Magazine Award in 2009. Jones details the reporting could exist.” and writing of the 17,000-word article —KARA MILLER he did for Esquire about Sergeant Joe HOST OF “INNOVATION HUB” ON WGBH RADIO Montgomery, who died in Iraq. In an effort to communicate the toll of war, Anastasia Taylor-Lind mailed 921 postcards, each bearing the name of one war victim in Ukraine Contents Fall 2015 / Vol. 69 / No. 4 Features Departments Building Better Ads 24 cover: storyboard Nieman News 3 Publishers are exploring ways to serve up storytelling and social media ads users actually want to see Live@Lippmann 4 By Celeste LeCompte Gathering the Shards 8 Vice content director Alex Miller Instagram as a storytelling tool for long- form writers who want to go short Listen Up 30 Niemans@Work 6 How involving news consumers in the By Neil Shea South Asia Check holds the media reporting process can improve stories accountable, a science writer’s diagnosis By Olivia Koski War Is Personal 16 changes his beat, the “Hidden Brain” Social media brings home news of podcast examines human behavior faraway conflicts By Anastasia Taylor-Lind nieman journalism lab Best of Times, Worst of Times 44 watchdog Will podcasting go the way of blogging? “In Mexico, They Kill You Twice” 36 By Joshua Benton Despite violence, journalists innovate and Vice Media’s Alex Miller says find new ways to get the story out Books 46 people watch By Monica Campbell “Cast of Characters: Wolcott Gibbs, E.B. Vice videos for White, James Thurber, and the Golden Age an average of 18 of The New Yorker” minutes page 4 By Thomas Vinciguerra Nieman Notes 48 Sounding 50 Wonbo Woo, NF ’16 cover photo: OPPOSITE PAGE: LISA ABITBOL; JONATHAN SEITZ ABITBOL; JONATHAN LISA OPPOSITE PAGE: By Anastasia Taylor-Lind Contributors The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University www.niemanreports.org Publisher Ann Marie Lipinski editor James Geary senior editor Anastasia Taylor-Lind (page 16), a 2016 Nieman Fellow, is an Jan Gardner English-Swedish photographer who often depicts women amidst conflict and war. A contributor to National Geographic, she is researcher/rePorter Jonathan Seitz author of “Maidan: Portraits from the Black Square.” editorial assistants Eryn M. Carlson Tara W. Merrigan design Pentagram editorial offices One Francis Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02138-2098, 617-496-6308, [email protected] Copyright 2015 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Periodicals postage paid at Neil Shea (page 8) is a contributing editor at The American Boston, Massachusetts and Scholar and the Virginia Quarterly Review, and his work regularly additional entries appears in National Geographic. He teaches at Boston University and publishes picture stories on Instagram as @neilshea13. subscriPtions/business 617-496-6299, [email protected] Subscription $25 a year, Celeste LeCompte (page 24), a 2015 Nieman $40 for two years; Fellow, is director of business development at add $10 per year for foreign airmail. ProPublica. She is the former managing editor for Single copies $7.50. Gigaom Research, one of the first subscription Back copies are available from products offered by a major blog network. the Nieman office. Please address all subscription Olivia Koski (page 30) is a multimedia journalist correspondence to: and director of the science public engagement One Francis Avenue, organization Guerilla Science. Her writing has Cambridge, MA 02138-2098 appeared in Popular Mechanics, Wired, and and change of address information to: Scientific American. P.O. Box 4951, Manchester, NH 03108 ISSN Number 0028-9817 Monica Campbell (page 36), a 2010 Nieman Postmaster: Send address changes to Fellow, is an editor and reporter at PRI’s “The Nieman Reports P.O. Box 4951, World,” where she focuses on immigration Manchester, NH 03108 coverage in the U.S. Prior to joining PRI, Campbell reported from Latin America and Afghanistan. Nieman Reports (USPS #430-650) is published in March, June, Elisabeth Witchel (page 42) launched the September, and December by Committee to Protect Journalists’ Global the Nieman Foundation at Harvard University, Campaign Against Impunity in 2007 and has One Francis Avenue, written four editions of its annual “Getting Away Cambridge, MA 02138-2098 with Murder: Global Impunity Index” report. PRESS OPPOSITE: ANDREW SELSKY/ASSOCIATED 2 nieman rePorts fall 2015 Nieman News “maintaining your independence, whatever the pressures” investigative reporter Though I shared Stone’s out of my frustration with the Robert Parry, founder and editor view that journalists should be mainstream news media. At AP, of Consortiumnews.com, may the consummate outsiders, where I worked from 1974 to be best known for his breaking I came to the profession 1987, I was perhaps best known news reporting during the Iran- through a different route. for breaking many of the contra affair in the 1980s. He I spent the first part of my stories that we now know as received the 2015 I.F. Stone Medal career as a mainstream the Iran-contra scandal. These for Journalistic Independence. journalist. But I never forgot included the first article about Following is an edited excerpt his insistence on maintaining a little known Marine officer of remarks he prepared for the your independence, whatever named Oliver North and—with award ceremony in October: the pressures. To me, the core my AP colleague Brian Barger— responsibility of a journalist the first story about how some i admired i.f. stone’s is to have an open mind toward of the Nicaraguan contras independent journalism way information, to have no agenda, got themselves mixed up in the back in college. I even lobbied to have no preferred outcome. drug trade. Robert Parry the school library to subscribe That’s the deal you make with To say that these stories to his newsletter. Reading your readers, to follow the facts weren’t always popular would He said there were things called it weekly shaped how I came wherever they lead. be an understatement. But websites. I really knew next to view journalism—as a I consider this award they were well-reported and to nothing about these matters, profession that required a recognition of what borne out when the Iran-contra but I listened. Sam—though endless skepticism. we’ve accomplished at scandal exploded in late 1986. not a techie—figured out I had the privilege of Consortiumnews.com over the Sadly, I had burned many how to build a website. We meeting him in the early 1980s past two decades. This honor bridges at AP in the fights to launched our no-frills website when I was an investigative goes to the many talented push our stories to the wire. in November 1995 as the first reporter for the Associated reporters and analysts who I went on to work at investigative magazine based Press (AP) in Washington. I had have written for us. They have Newsweek and then I worked on the Internet. gotten hold of some classified made Consortiumnews.com on some documentaries for The original idea was to records about financial a place where you can find PBS Frontline. But it was provide a home for neglected misconduct in El Salvador. He thoughtful, well-researched, becoming increasingly clear investigative journalists and called and asked if he could well-reported stories well to me that the space for serious their work. I thought I could read the documents. I said sure, worth reading nearly every day investigative journalism raise significant amounts and he showed up at the AP of the year. was closing down. With the of money from a variety of office on K Street. Through For those of you who arrival of Bill Clinton, there sources, hence the clunky name his thick glasses, he spent don’t know much about was a market for silly, tawdry Consortiumnews.