Stories

for paper pages & screens

(A journalism archive through 2013.)

 

Classic reporting and narrative journalism

I have spent most of my career at newspapers, writing straight news, news features and literary, narrative journalism mixed with essays and multimedia storytelling.

This portfolio includes some of each:

News features, such as a series in the Buffalo News about idiosyncratic local gathering places that reveal Buffalo, its personality and how people live in this city: From rail fans who meet at the Depew train station to the expats from Soviet bloc countries who sweat and drink tea at the Schvitz.

Stories with multimedia. A summer journalism fellowship to Germany led to a print piece with multimedia about Buffalo's German Sister City, Dortmund. This European cousin--with its own blue-collar, steel-making story--forged the connection as an antidote to World War II and built a legacy of friendships and student exchanges now forty years old.

"Videos" with still photos and sound that address wealth, poverty and ambition for change in Buffalo produced as part of a series with the Buffalo News Projects team and a semester-long Kiplinger digital media fellowship at Ohio State University. Watch.

A teaching video to help people quickly distill material, make stories and use narrative to keep them interesting. The project evolved from a volunteer trip to Ghana to lead writing seminars with staff at the Daily Graphic in Accra. It was funded by an OSU writing center grant. Watch.