On the latest episode of the Nieman Storyboard podcast, journalist Claudia Rowe joins Storyboard Editor Mark Armstrong to discuss her most recent book, “Wards of the State: The Long Shadow of American Foster Care,” which has been named a finalist for the 2025 National Book Awards. “Wards of the State” is a narrative nonfiction book told through the stories of six former foster kids to examine the failures of the American foster care system. Subscribe to the Nieman Storyboard newsletter:...

On the latest episode of the Nieman Storyboard podcast, award-winning journalist, author, and producer Danyel Smith joins Storyboard contributor Christina M. Tapper to discuss building the confidence to tell her own story and being a model for others to do the same. Smith, the first woman and first Black person to serve as editor-in-chief of Vibe, and who later served as editor of Billboard, is the author of “Shine Bright: A Very Personal History of Black Women in Pop.” The book is part...

What makes an editor-writer relationship work? We sit down with a reporter and editor who have achieved something of a rarity in the news business — a 16-year partnership across multiple publications. Michael Kruse and his editor, Bill Duryea, first teamed up at the Tampa Bay Times (then St. Petersburg Times) in 2009. They moved together to Politico and Politico Magazine in 2015, where they continued to work together for ten years. Kruse is a senior staff writer there, and now Duryea ha...

The New Yorker’s Interactives Visual Features Editor Sam Wolson joins Storyboard Editor Mark Armstrong for a conversation about his latest story, “There’s No Place at Home: A Mother and Her Trans Teen Decide to Leave the U.S.,” about a mother and her trans teenager deciding to move to Mexico after President Trump’s efforts to restrict gender-affirming care. The story is an interactive visual feature that combines photorealistic 3D models — using photos taken at the family’s house in Mai...

Mark Armstrong sits down with Storyboard contributor and author-journalist Mallary Tenore Tarpley to discuss her new book, “Slip: Life in the Middle of Eating Disorder Recovery.” “Slip” is a reported memoir, with Tarpley recounting her own diagnosis and treatment for anorexia following the death of her mother from breast cancer when Tarpley was 11 years old. She talks about the process of writing and researching the book, revisiting spaces from her childhood, and confirming memories through i...

Mark Armstrong sits down with Lane DeGregory, the Pulitzer Prize-winning enterprise reporter for the Tampa Bay Times covering "hope and humanity." DeGregory, whose work has been featured frequently on Storyboard over the years, is now celebrating 25 years at the Tampa Bay Times. She takes us through her process — from connecting with the community, to developing story ideas, and earning the trust of your subjects. She also reveals who inspires her work — from fellow journalists to music...

Storyboard contributor Christina M. Tapper sits down with Dana A. Williams, author of the new book “Toni at Random: The Iconic Writer’s Legendary Editorship,” for a conversation about Toni Morrison and her work as a trade editor at Random House, where she championed Black writers working in all genres and ultimately changed the publishing landscape. The book is the first to focus solely on the Nobel and Pulitzer Prize-winning writer’s editing career, and it offers previously untold stor...

“This American Life” reporter and editor Nadia Reiman joins Storyboard Editor Mark Armstrong for a conversation about immigration, mass deportation under Trump’s presidency, and finding the human stories amid ongoing raids by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Reiman has worked for “This American Life” since 2018, and in 2019, she was part of the producing and reporting team for “The Out Crowd,” an episode examining the first Trump administration’s policy on asylum seekers, which...

The Black List founder and CEO Franklin Leonard joins Storyboard Editor Mark Armstrong for a conversation about the state of storytelling in Hollywood, and how true stories intersect with entertainment. Leonard was working as a development executive for Leonardo DiCaprio's production company when he started The Black List 20 years ago, first as a survey of the best unproduced screenplays. The list became an immediate sensation, getting passed around Hollywood, and it has since grown int...

Washington Post technology reporter Drew Harwell joins Storyboard Editor Mark Armstrong for a conversation about his feature story on “Emilycc,” a Texas-based Twitch streamer who has livestreamed her entire life, 24 hours a day, for the last three years. For his story, “Inside the life of a 24/7 streamer: ‘What more do you want?’,” Harwell traveled to Texas to meet Emily, and he wrote it with the understanding that he was bridging two very different worlds — the streaming community on T...

Nieman Storyboard contributor Christina M. Tapper sits down with Akiba Solomon, an award-winning senior editor at The Marshall Project, the nonprofit news organization dedicated to covering the U.S. criminal justice system. Solomon edited The Language Project, about the terms journalists use to write about incarceration. Tapper and Solomon discuss the importance of people-first language, alternatives for dehumanizing words that are a part of our lexicon, and how to work with writers and...

New York Times bestselling author, journalist, and athlete Kim Cross joins Storyboard Editor Mark Armstrong for a conversation about reporting for narrative nonfiction — focusing on reconstructed narratives and her feature story for Bicycling magazine, "The Alchemists," about the Afghan women who broke gender barriers in cycling before the Taliban took over their country. "They, as teenage girls, had convinced their culture to change its mind about the fact that women were not allowed t...

Storyboard Editor Mark Armstrong welcomes Mary Schmich, the Pulitzer Prize-winning former columnist for the Chicago Tribune and host of the podcast "Division Street Revisited," which follows the stories of seven people featured in Studs Terkel's 1967 oral history book, "Division Street: America." Schmich teamed up with former colleague Melissa Harris, who came up with the idea for the show, and a group of acclaimed journalists to research and produce the podcast. In Terkel's original bo...

Storyboard editor Mark Armstrong sits down with Makena Kelly, senior writer for Wired covering the intersection of politics, power, and technology, about the magazine’s coverage of Trump's second term and how it has aggressively covered Elon Musk and DOGE's takeovers of federal agencies. Amid its breaking news coverage, Wired published “Inside Elon Musk’s Digital Coup” on March 13, a longform narrative that aimed to step back and tell the larger story of what was happening inside these ...

On the debut episode of the Nieman Storyboard podcast, host and Storyboard editor Mark Armstrong sits down with acclaimed journalist and author Erika Hayasaki, for an in-depth conversation about trauma-informed reporting, questions of "telling a story versus taking a story," and when it makes sense for journalists to include their own stories in their work. Full show notes: https://niemanstoryboard.org/2025/03/28/podcast-erika-hayasaki-trauma-informed-reporting-reported-essay/ Books by Erika ...

Nieman Storyboard is all about the craft of journalism and storytelling. Join host and Storyboard editor Mark Armstrong (Longreads, Ursa Story Company) for conversations with journalists, writers, and producers, in their own words, talking about how they do the work. We'll talk about stories that span every genre and platform — from longform narratives and books, to podcasting, documentaries, and social media. This show is presented by the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harv...