Time Magazine pieces - by Lev Grossman, Mark Thompson & Austin Ramzy

Time Magazine has had some really interesting pieces from the last few months to note here... and which are available online to anyone with a username and password on the Time site.

The one that stood out the most was the Feb 11 issue cover story "Drone Home" by Lev Grossman. Really a fascinating piece about aerial drones, with the most well-known being the Predator Drone used by the U.S. military, but there now being a host of civilian-use drones here in America. Additionally, the same military use drone technology used by the U.S. could be adopted by any number of other countries and Grossman raises the compelling and plausible idea of a foreign power someday following the U.S. military path of using drones to strike at enemies, but doing so on U.S. soil.

The oldest Time piece to mention here was also by Grossman, but from the Dec 19 Person of the Year edittion of Time. "Runner-Up: Tim Cook, the Technologist" was on the Apple CEO and while the entire piece an interesting one, what stood out to me was mention of the hours put into his job. Remarkable anecdote from Grossman on Cook with "He wakes up at 3:45 every morning (“Yes, every morning”), does e-mail for an hour, stealing a march on those lazy East Coasters three time zones ahead of him, then goes to the gym, then Starbucks (for more e-mail), then work."

The other two recent pieces of note from Time were both well written, but actually stood out to me as reminders of past articles I've linked to and written on about similar topics. In the Feb 7 Time issue Mark Thompson wrote "Killer. Healer. Victim." on the shooting death of former Navy Seal sniper Chris Kyle (who wrote a bestselling autobiography covering his time in the military). Kyle was active in trying to help other veterans cope with leaving the military and was gunned down at a shooting range by a someone someone struggling with mental illness and returning home. Really a sad story that reminded me of a 2012 blog post I did which linked to a number of pieces by Thompson and fellow Time writer Nancy Gibbs about veteran mental health troubles and disconnect with society.

The final Time story to mention here was by Austin Ramzy from the Feb 18 issue. "Precious Holdings" is about mining for Rare Earth metals and what's occurred in the market since the Chinese government in 2010 decided to dramatically limit exports of the commodities needed for technology including weapons, electronics and vehicles. Interesting piece that brought to mind a 2011 blog post I did on a Businessweek feature about Rare Earth mining in Alaska.

Writing on athletes off the field of play - by Chuck Culpepper, R.A. Dickey & Chuck Klosterman

There's been three pieces of writing I've seen recently that dealt with professional athletes attempting to accomplish things that go way beyond wins and loses.

For the website Sports on Earth, "The Gay Super Bowl" was by Chuck Culpepper and about his experience as a gay sports writer. Heavily featured in the piece is gay-rights advocate and NFL player Brendon Ayanbadejo (profiled a few months ago by Gwen Knapp) and Culpepper wraps up the story with the following exchange he had with Ayanbadejo...

"You don't know me," I said, and he grinned at that, "but you have done a lot for me," and his eyes told me he knew what I meant. "And I just want to tell you that I am so grateful. You are a good man." Whew. There. I had spit it out. With reasonable concision, even. As we let go of our handshake, he said simply and unemotionally, "It's the right thing to do, plain and simple," whereupon I mustered a closing, ''Thank you." Wary of bothering him any further, I turned around and practiced my penchant for fast walking, relieved that I had spoken, amazed that my unusual life could have intersected with such an unusual linebacker.


Another recent piece of writing about an athlete doing important work was actually by the athlete himself, MLB pitcher R.A. Dickey (who was profiled in a Dec '12 Sports Illustrated cover story by Gary Smith). Along with sports writer Wayne Coffey, Dickey did for the New York Daily News a story about his recent time spent in Mumbai, India. The setting brings to mind Katherine Boo’s book that I read last month about the slums there and this Daily News piece details Dickey being there with his two daughters to see work done by a charity he supports, the Bombay Teen Challenge which aids victims of human sex trafficking.


The final piece to mention here also very much showcased a pro athlete who works on behalf of a cause, in this case one probably more difficult to define than gay-rights or combating human trafficking and one the athlete himself actually a part one. Houston Rockets player Royce White suffers from diagnosed Anxiety Disorder and for the website Grantland, Chuck Klosterman offers a fascinating profile with "The White Album". Sections of it are written in a Q&A format and while unconventional, it seems appropriate as it helps let the reader decide how they feel about White and his views.

The first-year NBA player actually hasn't appeared in a game yet this season as he and the Rockets have disagreed on expectations of him and it's just tremendously interesting reading about White's views of how mental illness should be treated in the workplace. He makes some solid arguments both on behalf of himself and others by extension, but at the same time it seems like a functioning workplace (NBA team or otherwise) might not be quite so functioning if some of White's ideas were carried out. Whether someone fully agrees with White or not, it's certainly a subject that affects many in society today and bears the type of examination Klosterman provides.

"The Lost City of Z" by David Grann

The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon by David Grann was a pretty compelling read about famed English explorer Percy Fawcett, his search for a mythical city supposedly deep in the Amazon and those who later searched for Fawcett and information on what happened to him.

It was a well written book on some fascinating subjects and while it perhaps could have been shorter, the ending was well worth waiting for. There was some really excellent material from Grann that brought to present day some of the goals of discovery, challenges faced and cultures encountered by Fawcett close to a century ago.

Thinking of books I've read in the past, the subject of exploration brought to mind the excellent A Sense of the World by Jason Roberts on blind explorer James Holman. Also, after reading The Lost City of Z, I found a very complimentary and thorough (perhaps best not read until after for someone who intends to read Grann's book) New York Times review "An Explorer Drawn to, and Eventually Swallowed by, the Amazon" written by Michiko Kakutani.

Stories of the amazing - by Mike Dash for the Smithsonian & Robert Worth for the NYT Magazine

There's two different magazine pieces I saw last week that stood out as amazing true stories that were written well.

For the Smithsonian Magazine, Mike Dash provided "For 40 Years, This Russian Family Was Cut Off From All Human Contact, Unaware of World War II." As incredible as the title would indicate, the story told is of a Russian Orthodox family that entered Siberia in 1936 to escape religious persecution and remained isolated from the rest of civilization until a chance encounter with geologists in 1978. The details as described by Dash are remarkable and bring to mind another Smithsonian piece of his that I posted on and linked to a year ago, "The Mysterious Mr. Zedzed: the Wickedest Man in the World."

The other recent piece that struck me as telling an amazing true tale was "The Spy Novelist Who Knows Too Much" on French author Gérard de Villiers. Written by Robert Worth for the New York Times Magazine, it details de Villiers and his 200+ spy thrillers described by Worth as being "gruesome and decadent" books. In terms of readership, the de Villiers S.A.S. series is said to have sold some 100 million copies, but what's most striking in this piece is description of the level of inside or classified information the books are said to contain. Worth details how a de Villiers book will have detail around military and intelligence operations simply not seen anywhere else. In fact, it's noted in the piece how de Villiers in his books has at times presaged historical events with him having written novels that covered events to come in both Benghazi and Egypt.

Adventure writing - by C.J. Chivers, Steven Rinella and A.G. Sulzberger

There's been some great writing I've come across lately that trafficked in the fairly wide-ranging subject of outdoor adventure.

The most recent piece was "Two Men, One Sky: A Flight to the Finish" for the New York Times. Written by A.G. Sulzberger, it's on the remarkable 10 hour hang gliding solo flights of Jonny Durand and Dustin Martin as they simultaneously went from the border of South Texas to the North Texas Hill Country 438 miles away. It's a well done story of amazing achievement by both men who at the same time were striving to see whose record-breaking flight would be longer.

Additional great writing lately was found in two outdoor focused magazines. I originally saw it last April, but was recently reminded of a Field & Stream piece by frequent war correspondent C.J. Chivers. "Operation Thresher: Fishing for Monster Sharks off The Shores of Rhode Island" was an aptly named story of preparation, adventure and time spent between a father and his sons. Really great writing from Chivers in this story.

The final two pieces to note here were each from Outside Magazine and both written by Steven Rinella. From the Jan 2013 issue was "The Joys of Cabin Living in Alaska" and the essay is one of those works of writing that's just lyrical in it's descriptions and ability to pull the reader in. The other Rinella Outside story that I enjoyed recently was a larger feature from 2009 titled "Me, Myself, and Ribeye" on time the author spent searching out and enjoying what's purported to be some of the best steak in the world, that in Argentina. Perhaps not as profound as the essay on time with family at his Alaska cabin, it's nonetheless an entertaining tale of gastronomic adventure.

Solid sports writing - by Jones, Wickersham, Merrill & Price

There's been a few excellent pieces of writing I've seen recently from both ESPN and Sports Illustrated.

The Feb 4 issue of ESPN the Magazine featured "The Book of Coach" by Seth Wickersham. Written about Bill Walsh and his 550 page thesis on coaching, Finding the Winning Edge, it's compelling reading about both the book (with new copies going for $799+ on Amazon) and man himself (with his compulsion to be perfect). It was just fascinating reading within the piece about the sports writer that put together the book with Walsh and how he was treated by the 49er coaching legend.

From the same issue of ESPN was an excellent back-page column by Chris Jones. Titled "Keepers of the Cup", it's on the now concluded NHL lockout and has the subtitle "The bloated, broken NHL doesn't deserve the best trophy in sports." Solid piece from Jones that brings to mind for me the start of season NHL marketing slogan of "hockey's back"... and really, the NHL is back, but hockey never left.

Also by Jones for ESPN the Magazine was his Dec 2011 column "Watershed Moment" on surfer Garrett McNamara. It's excellent writing that's timely now with McNamara recently surfing what may well have been a 100-foot wave off the same Portugal coast that Jones wrote about just over a year ago.

The final ESPN piece to note here was by Elizabeth Merrill a few days ago for the website. "Are You a Ray Lewis Believer?" is about the Ravens linebacker as he prepares for his final NFL game in the upcoming Super Bowl. It was definitely an interesting approach that Merrill took in how she put the story together and the subject of Lewis brought to mind two really good S.L. Price pieces on Lewis for Sports Illustrated with "The Gospel According to Ray" from 2006 and "The Force of His Nature" after Lewis announced he would retire at season's end.

Esquire writing - from Lichtenstein, Chiarella & Jones

There's been a couple of Esquire pieces I've read lately that struck me as particularly remarkable, with one published in the Feb 2013 issue, one for the web last week and one a website post from 2010 that I linked to last year.

The magazine feature story was by Jesse Lichtenstein with "Do We Really Want to Live Without the Post Office?" It's writing that's both on an important subject and incredibly detailed. In this regard of how much included and the reporting that likely had to go into it, Lichtenstein's reminded me of a piece I linked to in Sept of last year, Justin Heckert's Esquire feature "How to Build an American Car" on the 2012 Cadillac ATS.

In the Esquire writing of profundity category lately were two different pieces published on the website. Tom Chiarella wrote "The Happiness of Aaron Swartz" about doing a eulogy at the memorial of the internet pioneer and open source web advocate. The essay by Chiarella touches on the themes of achievement and fear as well as friends and family and struck me as an example of just how powerful words can be when describing something of great import.

The final Esquire piece to note here is one from a few years ago that I previously included as part of a post on writing about fathers & sons, but I came across it again recently and is great writing that also reminded me of the essay on Swartz in the depth of feeling conveyed. "Autistics" was written by Chris Jones for his Esquire blog back in Sept 2010 and is about the writer's four year old son and his diagnosis as mildly autistic. It's a short piece and just struck me as really fantastic work.

"Because I Said So!" by Ken Jennings

In Because I Said So!: The Truth Behind the Myths, Tales, and Warnings Every Generation Passes Down to Its Kids Jeopardy champion Ken Jennings examines the scientific evidence around 125 different Mom-and-Dad-isms and rates each as true, false or somewhere in the middle.

I really liked the Jennings book Maphead: Charting the Wide, Weird World of Geography Wonks, but this latest effort didn't read much like a book with the different vignettes, some of them not terribly interesting to me. That said, some were and the following are those that stood out:

True:
1. "Breakfast is the most important meal of the day."
2. "Chicken soup will help you feel better when sick."

Mostly True: "Don't pop a blister."



Mostly False:
1. "Feed a cold, starve a fever."
2. "Don't talk to strangers, it's dangerous."

False:
1. "No swimming after eating or you'll cramp up."
2. "Don't cover a cut with a band-aid, air makes it heal."
3. "Bone and joint pain in kids can just be growing pains."
4. "If you crack your knuckles, you'll get arthritis."
5. "Young kids shouldn't lift weights as it will stunt their growth."
6. "You need to drink 8 glasses of water a day."
7. "You should clean your ears out with Q-tips."
8. "Reading in low light will hurt your eyes."
9. "It's bad for kids sit close to the TV when watching."

There were certainly some interesting dogmas looked at, just it felt less like a book and more like a list to peruse for the ones of personal interest (which of course isn't a terrible thing).

Writing & Reporting on Manti Te'o

It's now been a week since Deadspin published "Manti Te’o’s Dead Girlfriend, The Most Heartbreaking And Inspirational Story Of The College Football Season, Is A Hoax" and just as interesting to me as the story reported and written by Timothy Burke and Jack Dickey has been the subsequent writing around how the Te'o dead girlfriend myth was reported as fact.

To this end, "Manti Te'o in his own words" by Pete Thamel for the Sports Illustrated website a day after the Deadspin feature was by the writer of an Oct 1 SI cover story on Te'o. In this piece from a week ago, Thamel writes about the reporting process he went through and posts transcripts from interviews conducted with Te'o as well as multiple teammates, coaches and Notre Dame staff. Reading Thamel's thoughts looking back as well as the interview transcripts (and this story shows just how important verbatim transcripts are), it's understandable that a reporter wouldn't doubt the story even if it couldn't all be verified.

A day after the Thamel piece went online (and now two days after Deadspin broke the story), there was an excellent SI web column "Manti Te'o hoax should spark thirst for answers, not retribution" by Stewart Mandel. The title certainly gets at the content, but as facts were starting to become more clear (and pointed towards Te'o first being duped and then perpetuating the myth), Mandel wrote of just how overboard were the people vilifying the 21 year old. From his column was "Te'o didn't cheat his way to seven Tour De France titles. He didn't allow a child molester to roam a school's locker room. He didn't have an affair with his biographer while overseeing a national military operation."

Later that day ESPN got the first post-Deadspin piece interview with Te'o as respected reporter Jeremy Schaap interviewed him off camera for 2 1/2 hours. An interesting and fairly brief Q&A with Schaap about the interview was done by Ed Sherman for his sports media site Sherman Report and ESPN published an edited for clarity transcript of the Te'o-Schaap interview as well as a story "Manti Te'o denies being part of hoax" for the ESPN site.

Taking the bit longer view of the reporting on Te'o (if 4-5 days after the Deadspin report can be considered a long view) were two interesting pieces published on the Sports Illustrated site. Senior writer Tim Layden provided the column "For better or worse, Te'o hoax will alter sportswriting" and made a point around how writers may be forced to no longer include description that provides great color to a piece, is almost certainly true, but also not able to be 100% verified as factual. Additionally, SI writer Richard Deitsch (who frequently writes on the topic of sports media and coverage) posted "Pulitzer Prize-winners discuss Manti Te'o" with Ken Armstrong of the Seattle Times and Amy Nutt of the Newark Star-Ledger. There's a number of interesting thoughts from Armstrong and Nutt both, but two that stand out are the bigger picture danger of mythologizing and practical view danger of single-source stories.

It's been a fascinating story and will be I'm sure much more to come around both Te'o himself and the process of reporting and writing what's supposed to be non-fiction.

"How Will You Measure Your Life?" by Clayton Christensen, James Allworth & Karen Dillon

How Will You Measure Your Life? by Clayton Christensen is an interesting book from the renowned business professor and author of The Innovator’s Dilemma, a work praised by luminaries such as Andrew Grove and Michael Bloomberg.

Christensen’s latest work was co-written with James Allworth, a student of his at Harvard and Karen Dillon, editor of the Harvard Business Review and I heard about the book from the Businessweek piece “Clay Christensen’s Life Lessons” by Bradford Wieners.

The book is a blend of business and life lessons (with many covering both areas) and has a number of interesting points made throughout.

The first part of the book is more business focused and an initial idea put forth is Christensen espousing frameworks, how to think and solve problems rather than more narrowly focusing on what to think or the solution to any one quandary. Related to this is his view of job satisfaction being driven by both hygiene and motivation factors. The first factor contains often very necessary things like money, but not necessarily the motivating things that would cause someone to excel.

Looking a bit past just the individual to include a company view as well, Christensen notes the importance of assumptions in pursuing a goal (again, either for a person or a business), specifically the question of what has to prove true for a plan or approach to have the results you seek?

In the next section, the book focuses more specifically on individuals and their relationships. To this end, the peril of sequencing is brought up, specifically being willing to push aside important life or relationship investments now with the belief that you’ll get to them later. It’s noted that this approach will often result in important moments simply passing someone by. An example of sorts is given with the story of babies and language. Christensen writes of language dancing, adults carrying on real conversation with an infant and how the frequency of this interaction and sheer volume of words exposed to can have a large impact in the mental development of a child.

Another idea that stood out from this portion of the book is one that could be taken as a business lesson, but perhaps has more impact in relation to personal relationships. The question of what job does something serve? is brought up and Christensen then covers some interesting and important points on the subject. He writes that "the two fundamental jobs that children need to do are to feel successful and to have friends- every day" and then encourages the reader to “think about what jobs your spouse is looking to you to do” and follows that up with the idea of seeking not to find a mate who will make you happy, but one whose happiness would be important enough that the investment of time and energy to make that happen would be worthwhile to you.

The next idea of note from the book was also one that could be about either work or family and covered the danger of outsourcing important things (whether tasks for companies or personal development for children). Along with this was covered the importance of capabilities and how they’re made up of (A) resources, (B) processes and (C) priorities… basically what, how and why. If parents are always on with their kids, they’ll help them develop good processes (goes back to the how to think framework noted earlier) and hopefully take on the priorities both spoken of and that they themselves model for their children. It’s a fairly obvious point, but certainly an important one Christensen makes around setting examples all the time with the idea that "children will learn when they're ready to learn, not when we're ready to teach them."

Through this example setting and lesson teaching can come the right processes and priorities, including things like determination and kindness (there’s a nice anecdote from Christensen about teaching his kids that their family should be known for kindness) and collaboration with others. Very much related to all of this was an excellent quote made around children (but, frankly, would apply to anyone) with “self-esteem comes from achieving something important when it’s hard to do." Last thing covered in the book is yet another idea that would apply at both a business or individual level and that’s the importance of a defined purpose, one that’s comprised of (A) a likeness or end goal, (B) a commitment to pursuing that and (C) metrics to measure progress against the goal.

All in all, I thought it a very solid book with excellent ideas both around businesses and individuals.

Richard Ben Cramer Appreciations - by Alex Belth, Ryan McGee, Joe Posnanski & Tom Junod

Last week Nonfiction writer Richard Ben Cramer passed away and there was some really remarkable writing done by people appreciating his work. Cramer's most well known books were What it Takes: The Way to the White House and Joe DiMaggio: The Hero's Life and he was also a longtime newspaper and magazine writer.

The appreciation pieces done last week most frequently referenced two Cramer works, What it Takes and "What Do You Think of Ted Williams Now?" from Esquire and included in the magazine's list of seven greatest stories published. While The Williams piece is certainly a remarkable one, I was struck even more by what I believe was the first story of his I saw, "The Ballad of Johnny France" for Esquire and which I posted on back in Jan 2012.

In terms of the appreciation pieces, there was varying levels of personal connection to Cramer, but each writer was very much impacted by his work and that definitely comes across in the pieces written.

For Esquire, Tom Junod wrote "What Do You Think of Richard Ben Cramer Now?" and most striking for me were sentences Junod quoted from the Ted Williams piece including the opening "Few men try for best ever, and Ted Williams is one of those." The second quote (which Junod noted as being on "Williams's simultaneous need for fame and distaste of celebrity") was Cramer's observation "this is a bitch of a line to draw in America's dust."

The second appreciation piece to mention here was by Joe Posnanski on his personal blog with the simply titled "Richard Ben Cramer." What I particularly liked about this piece was the quoting of passages from Cramer and Posnanski's commentary on how he felt about the writing.

Another noteworthy piece of writing on Cramer was done by Ryan McGee for ESPN. "Richard Ben Cramer: A Hero Missed" was about McGee's experience working with and becoming friends with Cramer. Just some really cool stuff contained within about the writing process and thoughts on it that Cramer passed along to McGee.

The last piece to note here was not so much an appreciation piece, but rather a great story about Cramer told by his Esquire editor, David Hirshey. "What it Takes" was reprinted on the site Alex Belth's Bronx Banter (which is the same place I found "The Ballad of Johnny France") and it's on Cramer's subterfuge employed to get the 1986 Ted Williams profile published at his 15,000 words written rather than the 13,500 allotted to it by Esquire. Perhaps it's not a story that would happen today, but it's entertaining and enlightening about Cramer and how he felt about his work.

"Behind the Beautiful Forevers" by Katherine Boo

Behind the Beautiful Forevers is the first book from New Yorker writer Katherine Boo and won the 2012 National Book Award for Nonfiction writing.

It carries the subtitle Life, Death and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity and Boo is an acclaimed chronicler of disadvantaged communities and notes at the conclusion that she first went into the Mumbai slum of Annawadi in Nov 2007 and completed reporting in Mar 2011. The depth of research that she put into the book very much comes through and the detail provided so well written that the book reads like a novel with the richness of characters (who she notes are all actual people who lived the events portrayed).

One quibble I had reading the book was there were so many different people featured that it at times was hard to keep straight in my head who was part of which family and what the various relationships were. I found myself wishing there was a listing of each person at the beginning that I could refer back to while reading.

That said, it really was a powerful work that takes a bad situation and seems to portray it for exactly what it is... something horrible that each person living it works to survive as best they know how. It was amazing reading of how cutthroat people can become when they have nothing and to make matters even worse, the people tasked with helping instead view those below them as marks to profit from.

Towards this end, I was struck by a paragraph from the final chapter (which also was noted in the Janet Maslin New York Times book review that contained a number of views I'd echo)...

"Powerless individuals blamed other powerless individuals for what they lacked. Sometimes they tried to destroy one another. Sometimes, like Fatima, they destroyed themselves in the process. When they were fortunate, like Asha, they improved their lots by beggaring the life chances of other people."

What made Behind the Beautiful Forevers so interesting to me was how Boo told matter of fact (and true) stories of people acting in ways that certainly weren't always admirable, but made sense given their lives born into and forced to navigate. People still tried to lift themselves up and improve their lot (which kept the book from simply being a long tale of despair), but the external forces seemed to be at best not helpful and at worst restrictive of those efforts. Some level of success could still be achieved, but often in spite of most everyone and everything around them.

Writing on Writing (it's Work) - Leitch, Smith & Verducci

There's been a few writer interviews I've come across lately that stood out as interesting and reinforced an idea from a post I did last May, "Writers on Writing (it's Work) - Chris Jones on Robert Caro / Gary Cartwright / Mark Kram Jr." This central idea of work and it's import stood out to me in recent interviews with Will Leitch, Gary Smith and Tom Verducci.

The website TVFury provided the first new interview to note here with "The Fury Files: Will Leitch" and the part of greatest impact to me was at the end with Leitch on the effort he feels compelled to put in...

"I feel like I always just have to be a couple of steps ahead of the coroner. I figure if I type really fast, if I always turn in everything in time, if I keep doing things that I enjoy doing (and therefore make sure this never gets stale for me or the reader) … maybe I've got a chance. But I spent a long, long time writing thousands of words that nobody paid me for, that nobody read."

The Gary Smith interview was actually from 2008, but perhaps it's fitting to link to something a few years old here as Smith has for such a long period been doing great features for Sports Illustrated. On the Poynter Institute website was a post by current ESPN writer Jamele Hill titled "‘Going Deep’ with Sports Illustrated‘s Gary Smith." Background was Hill had written Smith back around 2000 asking about his approach to journalism and while there was a number of interesting responses passed along here, I particularly liked Smith on the subject of reporting and getting a source to open up...

"A lot of times it’s rephrasing a question three, four or five ways. A lot of us have the pat answer or the safe answer or the quick answer, [which is] is the first answer we’ll give. Sometimes it takes that many times of coming back at it in a slightly different way to unlock a little something more."

Finally, Jeff Pearlman on his website last month did the interview "The Quaz Q&A: Tom Verducci" with the Sports Illustrated writer / MLB Network reporter / FOX game analyst. Just as Leitch and Smith provided, there's a ton of solid content from Verducci, but (similar to from the Smith interview) the part I found most interesting was on reporting...

"Patience is a requirement. Anybody with a credential and a pen or a microphone can get “a” quote. You've seen it, Jeff: the scrum around the star of the game and the stock questions that typically feature phrases such as “how surprised were you . . . ,” “the mindset,” and “what pitch.” The worst are the non-questions. They almost always start like this: “Talk about . . . .” It’s sheer laziness. The point is that you ask a stock question you get a stock quote. I don’t want mere quotes. I want information. And I want what’s true. You have to be patient if you’d rather drill closer to bedrock than the surface layer."

Sports stories that matter - by R.A. Dickey, Gary Smith & Matthew Jeffers

A topic I've thought a lot about through the course of watching, reading about and writing on sports is how much it exactly matters. I've been a fan of sports since childhood, but as time has gone on and life experience and children added to the equation, it's become more and more clear that wins and loses just not that terribly important. There's lessons to be learned through sports (many bad, but some good and I'll think about the good ones for now), shared experience that can be gained (and just like good vs bad lessons, let's focus on positive shared fandom experiences), but really me thinks that being a grown-up sports fan is about simple entertainment value. Not to speak dismissively about entertainment value as it's an important part of life, but far down the list in terms of most important things.

With this in mind, the sports stories I love the most are those that take the construct of sports and then use it to provide something of greater heft. I recently did a blog post on my favorite writing linked to in 2011 (yea, I know, it's 2013) and the six pieces of sports writing included all were in different ways about things much more important than wins and loses.

On this same theme of sports as a vehicle to a more important story were three different pieces of writing I've come across recently that stood out.

For the New York Daily News last month, MLB pitcher R.A. Dickey wrote an essay thanking New York fans after his trade to the Blue Jays. It would be a well written and nice letter in and of itself, but more than anything for me, it's a reminder of the his past and the good Dickey has tried to accomplish. Eloquently described in the Sports Illustrated cover story "Stand Up, Speak Out" by Gary Smith was the story of Dickey and Judo gold medalist Kayla Harrison using their respective platforms as athletes to bring more light on the topic of sexual abuse each a childhood victim of.

The second piece of recent sports writing on something of great import was also by Gary Smith with his Sports Illustrated column "After Newtown: Change Has Gotta Come." It's written with the same what's possible if people speak out approach that Smith used when writing on Dickey and Harrison and in this case is on gun violence and the impact that sports figures can have if they make the effort.

Finally, the last piece to note here was similar to that by Dickey in two respects, it was both only sort of sports writing and not by an actual sports writer. Posted to the Baltimore Ravens official website by Community Relations VP Kevin Byrne was "Ravens Fan's E-Mail Inspires Team" which included a message from 21 year-old Matthew Jeffers. It's not in the same vein of using an athlete's public platform to accomplish good (though at least one Ravens player has been doing this, as Gwen Knapp writes about "Flipping the Script" for Sports on Earth), but rather the idea of doing your best under trying circumstances. Winning at a competition is certainly something to attempt, but not as important as the battles that life can bring.

Really a powerful message from Jeffers and along with those from Dickey and Smith it shows well for me a perspective towards sports along with the potential for it to impact change. May be a bit of a reach to bring these pieces and ideas all together here, but nah... I don't think so.

Businessweek pieces - Hannan on Dish Network & Borrell on Maple Syrup

The latest issue of Businessweek had two really interesting feature stories with one on satellite TV provider Dish Network and one on Maple Syrup (that's right, Maple Syrup).

Caleb Hannan wrote "Dish Network, the Meanest Company in America" and it's a well done story that focuses on founder and CEO Charlie Ergen and his not so particularly nice approach to running the company. Some pretty amazing anecdotes in the story ranging from docking employees pay if they over-tip an expensed meal to fingerprint readers for nabbing late-arrivals to work at corporate HQ. All this and a stock that's historically performed well... hopefully there's not a huge lesson there, but regardless, it makes for entertaining reading.

The other feature that stood out was by Brendan Borrell with "The Great Canadian Maple Syrup Heist." It (along with the Dish Network one) is an example of a story that Businessweek seems to love to run, something offbeat that still very much deals with large money in the world of business. Borrell does a solid job in this piece on a story that brings to mind prohibition-era whiskey and our friends Nucky Thompson and company.

Best writing linked to in 2011

As I was about to embark on the process of posting on my favorite writing linked to from 2012, it occurred to me that I never looked back at the best pieces linked to in 2011, with my last "best of" post being Close to Best 2010 Writing Linked To - Business. So, skipping 2012 for now and going further back...

Best writing on writing linked to in 2011

"Yesterday's News" by J.R. Moehringer for 5280: The Denver Magazine. Written on and linked to in July 2011.

"The Most Beautiful Word" by Joe Posnanski for his personal blog. Written on and linked to in Jan 2011.

"The Loading Dock Manifesto" by John Hyduk for Esquire. Written on and linked to in May 2011.

"Four Nights at Elaine's: The Last Will and Testament of a Great Saloon" by Wright Thompson for Grantland. Written on and linked to in Aug 2011.



Best writing on sports linked to 2011

"Terror, Tragedy And Hope In Tuscaloosa" by Lars Anderson for Sports Illustrated. Written on and linked to in May 2011.

"How To Become An American" by Charlie Pierce for Sports Illustrated. Written on and linked to in Dec 2011.

"Born to race, Dan Wheldon found happiness in town's slower pace" by Michael Kruse for what is now the Tampa Bay Times. Written on and linked to in Dec 2011.

"The Wheels of Life" by Gary Smith for Sports Illustrated. Written on and linked to in April 2011.

""Beat, Play, Love" by Michael Rosenberg for Sports Illustrated. Written on and linked to in Feb 2011.

"The Heart Of Football Beats In Aliquippa" by S.L. Price for Sports Illustrated. Written on and linked to in Jan 2011.


Best other writing linked to in 2011

"Heavenly Father!" "I love you all!" "I love everyone!" "Jesus! Jesus! Jesus! Jesus! Jesus! Jesus! Jesus! Jesus! Jesus! Jesus! Jesus! Jesus! Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!" "I love all of you!" by Luke Dittrich for Esquire. Written on and linked to in Oct 2011.

"The Bomb That Didn't Go Off" by Charlie Pierce for Esquire. Written on and linked to in Aug 2011.

"Torn Asunder: How the Deadliest Twister in Decades Ripped Through Joplin, Mo." by David Von Drehle for Time Magazine. Written on and linked to in June 2011.

"Nina & Kristopher: A story of great love, great loss" by Tommy Tomlinson for the Charlotte Observer. Written on and linked to in June 2011.

"Diner for Schmucks" by Alan Richman for GQ. Written on and linked to in Aug 2011.

All 15 pieces linked to here were excellent and the ones that stood out the most to me the most were the following: on the Tuscaloosa tornado by Lars Anderson, on the Joplin tornado by Luke Dittrich (with his piece winning the National Magazine Awards feature of the year), on the bomb that didn't go off by Charlie Pierce and on working for a Denver paper by J.R. Moehringer (with that piece from 2008, but I wrote on and linked to it in 2011).

Stories of meticulous work- Weiner on Seinfeld & Green on a pickpocket artist

There were two pieces of recent feature writing that seemed to group together with both about performance artists and the meticulous work put into their crafts.

For the New York Times Magazine, Jonah Weiner wrote "Jerry Seinfeld Intends to Die Standing Up" on the comedian. It's remarkable reading about the hours and effort Seinfeld puts in to comedy when he financially wouldn't have to work another day of his life. From the amount of time that he works on perfecting jokes to his internet video series "“Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee," Seinfeld definitely puts in the hours to be great. This is shown very well by Weiner in the piece and also included was a fair amount of background history on the comedian's formative years and where this approach developed.

The piece of writing that seemed closely related was also on a performance artist with "A Pickpocket's Tale" on Apollo Robbins. For the New Yorker, Adam Green wrote a profile on the Vegas-show and corporate gig performer and similar to to piece on Seinfeld, it's interesting to see what a performer puts in to make their show look effortless. Also fascinating from the piece was Robbins on the larger idea of human attention and how it relates to something like pickpocketing.

The pieces from Weiner and Green were both just excellent in-depth looks at two performers putting in the work to be exceptional.

Writing on Sports Phenoms - by Pablo Torre & Dave Sheinin

Great sports writing on phenoms can often be more compelling than pieces on established sports stars because the phenoms represent potential not yet fully realized. Granted, that hoped for greatness may not come to pass, but it just might.

Athletes in their teens or early 20's I've linked to pieces on include baseball players Mike Trout, Stephen Strasburg, Trevor Bauer and Bryce Harper and recently I've come across two excellent pieces of writing on young stars playing two other sports.

"The Making of Kyrie Irving" was written by Pablo Torre for the Jan 7 ESPN The Magazine and is a really solid look at the Cavaliers second year point guard. Irving has performed extremely well on the NBA level after his injury shortened single season at Duke and the Torre piece is a revealing look at what got him to this point. Irving's mother passed away when he was five and Torre tells well the story of his father helping develop both Irving's game and confidence while raising he and his sister. Just a very heartwarming tale of a great athlete with potential to become even better.

The second piece of excellent sports writing to mention here was by Dave Sheinin for the Washington Post. "Robert Griffin III emerges as the Washington Redskins’ leader despite rookie status" was done prior to the Redskins recently winning the NFC East and shows the steps taken by Griffin to earn his role as a team captain and someone team veterans want to follow. It's tremendously interesting reading from Sheinin and Griffin's both calculated and completely authentic approach towards assuming leadership could serve as an example for other young stars moving up to the next level of competition.

It was solid writing from both Torre and Sheinin on two athletes that come across in the respective pieces as stars easy to root for.

New York Times Snow Fall interactive feature

"Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek" was an amazing feature from the New York Times that stood out on multiple levels. The piece was written by John Branch and in 18,000+ words details the avalanche that claimed the lives of three expert skiers on an out-of-bounds run at Stevens Pass ski area outside Seattle.

Previously written on this tragedy was the piece "Tunnel Vision" by Megan Michelson for Outside Magazine. The writing by Michelson was compelling and I previously linked to it in a post on writers and their writing as she was part of the group skiing that day. 

It's in no way a knock on the Michelson piece, but Branch definitely expands on the story as "Snow Fall" features the following postscript: "The reporting for this article on the Feb. 19 avalanche at Tunnel Creek was done over six months. It involved interviews with every survivor, the families of the deceased, first responders at Tunnel Creek, officials at Stevens Pass and snow-science experts. It also included the examination of reports by the police, the medical examiner and the Stevens Pass Ski Patrol, as well as 40 calls to 911 made in the aftermath of the avalanche. "

This level of reporting done by Branch was reminiscent of what must have gone into his three-part series "Punched Out: The Life and Death of a Hockey Enforcer" on Derek Boogaard for the Times a year ago. Continuing with this idea of reminiscent parallels, I linked to the Boogard story with it's in-depth level of journalism in the same way that I did the Michelson piece, under the subject of writers and writing.

Not to simply use this post as a vehicle to link to past blog posts done here, but the recent "Snow Fall" story  falls into this same category of being interesting not just as a piece of excellent writing, but in relation to the field of journalism and writing. Along with the aforementioned level of reporting done by Branch, the piece differs from most in that the Times published it as an interactive feature that incorporates extremely well-done graphics, images and video along with the text.

About the concept and construction of the Times feature (incorporating both Branch's text and everything beyond) were a few different pieces from The Atlantic. On December 20th, Rebecca Greenfield wrote "What the New York Times's 'Snow Fall' Means to Online Journalism's Future" which included an interview with two editors from the Times Graphics and Digital departments. Then a day later, Atlantic editor Derek Thompson did "'Snow Fall' Isn't the Future of Journalism" about how as incredible as the feature is, it's likely not going to become a norm in journalism simply because of how much work it required. Finally, Greenfield a week later added "So What if Tons of People Read That 'Snow Fall' Story on the Times Website?" that included mention of how the feature got as many page views for the Times that the entire Outside Magazine site gets in a month.

It was interesting reading these pieces from The Atlantic and to probably generalize a bit on the message conveyed, they echoed what I thought while reading "Snow Fall"; it's a thoroughly reported and well written feature that included lots of additional work outside of writing, but it doesn't seem sustainable for publications to provide this on a regular basis. While it's true that the Times and Byliner collaborated to make "Snow Fall" available for purchase as an e-book, the note "A version of this article, which includes an epilogue, is available as an e-book" doesn't seem as it if would draw in many readers who have just enjoyed the 18,000+ works and numerous interactive features for free on the Times site.

That said, while the field of journalism and how writing should be delivered (and paid) still very much in flux, it's heartening to see the attempt made to figure it out and a great feature (including the writing by Branch and everything else that went into it) provided in the process.

The Signal and the Noise by Nate Silver

The Signal and the Noise by Nate Silver is a solid book on predictions and probability which at times is a bit weighty, but due more to the subject than anything Silver should have done differently in the writing.

Silver is the creator and still lead writer of the (now New York Times) blog FiveThirtyEight which began in advance of the 2008 Presidential election and has become a go-to place to get political predictions. Silver makes his calls based in probabilities and does so based on looking at a wide variety of poll numbers and factoring in weighting information about those polls. Out of the November 2012 elections, Silver correctly predicted the Presidential winner in each state as well as all but one Senate race (those unpredictable folk in Montana).

 The subtitle to Silver's book is Why So Many Predictions Fail — but Some Don't and he notes fairly in reference to his main title that "the signal is the truth. The noise is what distracts us from the truth." In terms of structure, he lays out in the intro that the first half of the book diagnoses problem with many predictions and the second looks at making predictions better, in large part through the application of something called Baye's theorem.

Some of the prediction areas that Silver notes as having room for improvement are below:

Many people felt the real estate plunge of a few years back couldn't occur because they made predictions based on the idea that home loan defaults were much more independent of each other than was the case. In actuality, what occurred is loan defaults turned out to be very much related as a direct result of home values being tied to one another.

Pundits making their calls about political winners based on feeling turn out to often be wrong. As evidence of this, Silver notes The McLaughlin Group and how predictions on the television show turned out to be roughly equal parts right, wrong, somewhat right and somewhat wrong.

Forecasting disasters such as terrorism, hurricanes, earthquakes, foods and influenza outbreaks.

As Silver gets into the idea of improving prediction, he brings up the aforementioned idea of Bayesian reasoning named after Thomas Bayes, which includes considering the likelihood of events in making predictions. Silver also notes that the concepts behind Baye's theorem fit heavily into principles that guide his FiveThirtyEight blog... (1) think in probabilities of things coming to pass rather than just making predictions, (2) make changes to forecasts as new info arises and (3) look for consensus in forecasts (which sounds to me like a Wisdom of the Crowds-related idea).

All in all, it's a fairly heavy read, but a worthwhile one (or at a minimum, a worthwhile skim of parts that resonate) for somebody interested in predictions, why many of them fall short and how they can be improved.