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Monday, June 09, 2008 6:53 AM

Lure and Connect

An intriguing title and blurb can pull readers into a story they'd otherwise skip. Here's how Rebecca Dube of The Globe and Mail begins "Senior High," her series on a Toronto retirement home named the Terraces of Baycrest: Fast Times at Senior High
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Friday, May 30, 2008 6:06 AM

Sights and Sounds

I love the way Andrew Lee Butters starts his "Welcome to Hizballahstan" in the May 26 issue of Time with a sharp mix of sight and sound accented with a strong quotation: Surrounded by a ring of mountains like a concert band shell, Beirut
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Thursday, May 29, 2008 6:16 AM

Bringing the Troops Home

Bryan Bender and Kevin Baron of the Boston Globe have done some outstanding reporting on military affairs. In December we highlighted "Army Knew of Cheating on Tests for Eight Years." Now they have produced an excellent Memorial Weekend series, "Finding
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Thursday, May 15, 2008 8:25 AM

Trash Talk

The cologne-scented pages of the May GQ feature a wonderful story about, of all things, garbage. In "This is Paradise," Jeanne Marie Laskas describes with pungent detail the Puente Hills Landfill near Los Angeles and the philosophical men and massive
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Sunday, May 11, 2008 10:55 PM

A Soldier Comes Home

The magnificent and moving "The Things That Carried Him" by Chris Jones in the May issue of Esquire narrates the nine-day journey that Sgt. Joe Montgomery's body took between his death in Iraq and his burial in an Indiana cemetery. Moving backward through
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Friday, March 28, 2008 8:00 AM

Steve Fossett's Last Adventure

The March issue of Chicago magazine features a brilliant profile by Bryan Smith of pilot Steve Fossett. Smith's "Without a Trace" explores the mystery of how a man who escaped death so many times could disappear during a routine flight
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Monday, March 17, 2008 8:30 AM

Small Town Lives

Boyd Huppert of KARE 11 News in Minneapolis has crafted a wonderful series about opportunities and tribulations in rural America. His "Four Corners" project takes us to the Grand Portage Reservation and the towns of Northcote, Luverne and Caledonia in
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Thursday, March 13, 2008 7:33 AM

Portrait of a Street

Miami's 27th Avenue stretches for 17.5 miles through some of Dade County's most culturally rich neighborhoods. Although the street was officially renamed "Unity Boulevard" more than 20 years ago, Robert Samuels of the Miami Herald shows us that these
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Thursday, February 28, 2008 8:00 AM

Homeless in San Francisco

Reporter Amanda Witherell and intern Bryan Cohen of the San Franisco Bay Guardian spent a week living undercover in the city's shelters to learn what it's like for the homeless to navigate a confusing system. Witherell's amazing "Shelter Shuffle" is
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Wednesday, February 27, 2008 8:00 AM

Hearts and Minds in Afghanistan

Six years after U.S. forces attacked the Taliban regime, Elizabeth Rubin returned to Afghanistan last fall to see how American troops are faring in the war against an insurgency that never seems to end. Her "Battle Company Is Out There" in this week's New
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Wednesday, February 20, 2008 8:30 AM

Uneasy in the Big Easy

Along with the New Orleans Times-Picayune, the alternative Gambit Weekly has been doing a terrific job of describing its city's plight following Hurricane Katrina. In last week's "Under the Bridge," Greg Thomas writes about spending
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Thursday, January 03, 2008 8:30 AM

News Gem of the Year

We think the best journalism of 2007 was The Washington Post's comprehensive and sustained coverage of the conflict in Iraq and its repercussions. Steve Fainaru’s “Private Armies” series shined a much-needed spotlight on the more than 20,000
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Wednesday, January 02, 2008 8:30 AM

Best Gems of 2007

When we sat down to create the Top 10 News Gems of 2007, we ended up with an initial list of more than 40 favorite stories. We had a hard time deciding among the many outstanding examples of journalism from magazines, broadcast outlets, Web sites and
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Friday, November 09, 2007 9:00 AM

Vancouver's Sordid Side

Vancouver, Canada, is a wonderful city. But like everywhere else, it has places you'd rather avoid. There, David Carrigg and Kate Webb of the Vancouver Province show us, lie several gritty tales. In "Undercover with The Province," Carrigg stays in a blood-
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Thursday, October 25, 2007 6:43 AM

The Amazing Journey

Chicago Tribune foreign correspondent Evan Osnos and photographers Zbigniew Bzdak and Wes Pope have created the most impressive reporting blog that I've ever seen.  "The Sichuan Diaries" describes a four-week journey they took by foot,
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