When I worked at the Los Angeles Times, one of the things that made me the proudest of the newspaper was its commitment to covering every killing in L.A. County with its Homicide Report. In the face of a … Read more
Anyone who’s worked in the obituary or foreign news section of a news outlet has a story or two to tell about the Fidel Castro obituary, otherwise known as Bane of Existence. The endless updating and reworking over the years … Read more
In today’s age of distraction, reading an entire longform story in one sitting — never mind an entire magazine —seems like a lost art. Emails, text messages, Facebook notifications and all those open browser tabs beckon, bringing our attention elsewhere … Read more
In this time of political shockers, it seems a good time to revisit the biggest political shocker of the American 20th century: the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Today is the 53rd anniversary of the killing, and so much … Read more
Just in time for the weekend, here’s a little list of some of the things I’ve been listening to and reading this week, some of it online — Storyboard included, natch — and some of it on vinyl or actual … Read more
I follow the journalist Randy Potts on social media, so I had known for weeks that he was planning to launch “The Bible Went Down With The Birdie Jean,” a serialized, reported memoir about life as the gay grandson of … Read more
One day this spring, New York Times reporter Deborah Acosta left her reporting up to serendipity. She’d followed a trail of Kodachrome slides to a huge bag full of striking images, seemingly abandoned in a trash bin in New York … Read more
This week I thought I’d depart a little from the regular format, because this wasn’t a normal week. We went to the polls, we elected a billionaire reality-TV star to the presidency, and then to top things off, Leonard Cohen … Read more
A swirling pinkish orb, emerging out of the void. Voiceover: “Hundreds of years down the line, who’s going to know who was the president of the United States, or something?” Solar rays over a vast planetary … Read more
If you are bored and disgusted by politics and don’t bother to vote, you are in effect voting for the entrenched Establishments of the two major parties, who please rest assured are not dumb, and who are keenly aware that … Read more