Laurie Hertzel, projects editor at the Star Tribune in Minneapolis, surveyed her paper's writers about a widely ignored art: self-editing. Most reporters never become excellent at this because [...]

Three weeks ago, an old apartment building in L.A. burned down, killing two people: the building's manager, who remains an arson suspect, and a woman who lived in the building. She died moments [...]

With little time to think, planning became the key virtue Background: So, I go to work for my paper's "Calendar" section, which covers entertainment--but, a month after I get there, they [...]

Dear readers of Newsthinking, I thought I'd use the site to recommend good stuff, stuff that print journalism has to do more of if it expects people to continue subscribing. We've got to [...]

As you develop your writing talent you develop a technical appreciation of quotes--when they help and when they hinder. Here, from two stories published today, are a couple lessons. The [...]

I figured that when I returned to reporting after a 9 1/2-year layoff I'd be rusty, scared, frustrated and humbled. And I was right. Just not in the ways I expected. I didn't think my physical [...]

Our business is ambivalent about anniversary stories. It is fashionable to hate them, to claim that they exist only to fill space, to declare the obvious, to be written out of obligatory motives.

If you're intrigued with the blurb on the right side of Newsthinking's March 11 home page devoted to promoting my CD, here's the explanation. It grew out of some demo songs I recorded at home and [...]

Okay, I think it's safe to say I'm out of rehab. I've remembered how to be a reporter. Now it's just a matter of getting better. I thought, at least until somebody e-mails me and says she's [...]

Admit it, you're lead-obsessed. We all are. (This newsletter is.) There's good reason: The lead not only determines whether a reader joins you for the ride, but it foreshadows many aspects of the [...]