Nieman Narrative Journalism Conference

On a late fall weekend in 2001, the Nieman Program on Narrative Journalism convened its first conference. More than 800 journalists traveled to Cambridge, Massachusetts to take part in three days of interactive seminars, lectures and readings with many of the nation’s leading practitioners. By the end of the conference, there had been 26 seminars, four plenary sessions, and three group readings, and it is from words spoken at these sessions that Nieman Reports compiled the report that follows. — Melissa Ludtke

Nieman Narrative Journalism Conference: Introduction
By Melissa Ludtke, Editor; Conference Introduction
By Mark Kramer; Sharing the Secrets of Fine Narrative Journalism
Those who do it well explain what it is they do.
Panel Discussion; Conference Participants Whose Words Appear in This Issue; Writing About Ordinary Lives
‘I wanted to move the realm of curiosity into the lives of people who had been ignored….’
By Gay Talese; Indulging Curiosity
By Michel Marriott and Gay Talese; Reporting Differently
How to come back with a notebook full of narrative.
By Mark Kramer; Interviewing Sources
‘The center of the onion is what you want.’
By Isabel Wilkerson; Be a Reporter, Not a Guest
By Mark Kramer; Finding Time to Write (1 comment)
Hold yourself accountable. Get your work on paper.
By Stewart O’Nan; Editors and Reporters
‘Quite frankly, we need each other.’
By Jacqui Banaszynski; ‘Reporting is the key to good journalism.’
By Steven A. Holmes; ‘Very few writers understand that a story has an arc, not just a beginning, a middle, and an end.’
By Jim Collins; ‘Writing is all about rewriting, which means you’ve got to get something down.’ (3 comments)
By Chip Scanlan; ‘Don’t try to squeeze the dress of narrative over the wrong form.’
By Jacqui Banaszynski; A Bunch of Tips for Reporters; Tips for Editors; More Tips for Editors
A collaborative relationship at The Oregonian
By Jack Hart and Richard Read; Reporters Read From Their Narrative Articles
By Steven A. Holmes, Isabel Wilkerson, Tom French, Stan Grossfeld, Rick Bragg; A Love Fest on Narrative Elements
It’s the voice, you fool. No, it’s the theme, dummy. No, it’s the story, you buttonhead.
By Bruce DeSilva, Chip Scanlan, Jon Franklin; Writing in a Personal Voice
‘Your training as journalists is a tremendous platform on which to layer or from which to develop a personal voice.’
By Emily Hiestand; ‘Learn how to see the world through an artist’s eyes.’
By Madeline Bodin; ‘The voice is you.’
By Nan Talese; Why We Need Stories (1 comment)
‘Without them, the stuff that happens would float around in some glob and none of it would mean anything.’
By Jacqui Banaszynski; 'Stories are for eternity, when memory is erased, when there is nothing to remember except the story.'
By Jacqui Banaszynski; Structuring Stories for Meaning
‘Your character gets to the point where something changes.’
By Jon Franklin; ‘The idea of meaning is central to storytelling.’
By Dan Mathers; Scenes, Suspense and Character
‘Everything really boils down to one or another of those three things.’
By Adam Hochschild; Pick compelling characters. Think in scenes. Create suspense.
By Ellen Sung; Deliberating Withholding Information to Create Suspense
By Adam Hoschschild; Endings
‘The inverted pyramid makes endings impossible.’
By Bruce DeSilva; An Unexpected Ending
By Bruce DeSilva; Serial Narratives
Their power comes from ‘that delicious sense of enforced waiting.’
By Tom French; What Happens Next?
By Mike Lenehan; Historical Writing and the Revival of Narrative (2 comments)
‘…the line between scholarly and popular writing is now much more difficult to discern.’
By Jill Lepore; The Immersion Experience In Historical Narrative
By Jill Lepore; Journalists and historians can learn from each other.
By Adam Hochschild; Conference Diary
Ideas and insights, opinions and suggestions—all of these surfaced again and again in the swirl of presentations. What follows are snippets from these sessions that didn’t find a home on the previous pages but merit consideration

Women and Journalism: U.S. Perspectives: Introduction
By Melissa Ludtke, Editor; A Pioneering Generation Marked the Path For Women Journalists (1 comment)
Today, women’s roles and numbers have increased but some key issues remain unresolved.
By Christy C. Bulkeley; The Value of Women Journalists
A journalist urges others to use their reporting skills to document gender discrepancies in their newsrooms.
By Susan E. Reed; ‘The Girls in the Van’
What happened when a lot of women journalists reported on Hillary Clinton’s campaign?
By Beth J. Harpaz; Women Journalists See Progress, But Not Nearly Enough
‘The shortage of women editors reverberates through the ranks.’
By Jodi Enda; Redefining the ‘Private Lives’ of Public Officials (1 comment)
Women journalists have played a major role in this changing coverage.
By Florence George Graves; An Internet News Service Reports News and Views of Women
For Women’s Enews, the challenge is to be able to finance the telling of these stories.
By Rita Henley Jensen; Women Journalists Spurred Coverage of Children and Families
‘…I no longer had to approach my work as though I didn’t have children.’
By Jane Daugherty
Words & Reflections: Introduction
By Melissa Ludtke, Editor; What Does ‘Good Work’ in Journalism Look Like?
‘Simply put, what is the face in the journalistic mirror that the best practitioners want to see in the morning?’
By Jim Carey; Telling Stories on Radio, Just to Tell Them
‘Nearly all the stories are memorable, from the mundane to the miraculous.’
By Andrew Sussman; Bicoastal
By Beth Kivel; Salt Lake City, Utah, 1975 (1 comment)
By Steve Hale; Dangers Lie Beneath the Promise of the Internet
By using Web technology to tailor the news a user receives, does democracy suffer?
By Katie King; Examining the Vanishing Standards in Reporting
‘Now one source, however flimsy, was okay.’
By Robert Sherrill; Bias Among the Media
Journalists share more liberal perspectives, but do those views impact their news coverage?
By Peter A. Brown; ‘Monstrous Passions at the Core of the Human Soul…’
A journalist adroitly chronicles the catastrophes that were Mobutu’s Congo.
By Wilson Wanene; Examining Religious Paths Into and Out of the Middle East
Through the eyes of two journalists, the lives of Christians and Jews are explored.
By David B. Green
Curator's Corner: Threats to Press Freedom in Russia
At a first-of-its-kind conference in Moscow, problems are exposed.
By Bob Giles
Nieman Notes: Documenting the Rhythms of Cuba
A photographer uses digital video ‘to capture the passion and grittiness of contemporary Cuba.’
By David Turnley; A Nieman Year During Difficult Times
A Jordanian journalist learns to listen and reflects on what he does and why.
By Rami G. Khouri

What are people saying?: ‘Writing is all about rewriting, which means you’ve got to get something down.’ (3 comments)
By Chip Scanlan; Historical Writing and the Revival of Narrative (2 comments)
By Jill Lepore; Finding Time to Write (1 comment)
By Stewart O’Nan; Why We Need Stories (1 comment)
By Jacqui Banaszynski; A Pioneering Generation Marked the Path For Women Journalists (1 comment)
By Christy C. Bulkeley

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