Writing What You Don't Know: The Ethics and Craft of Narrative Journalism

The tradition of immersive journalism is full of ethical and practical landmines. How do journalists artfully and respectfully tell stories about places unfamiliar to them? How do they gain access and trust in vulnerable communities? How do they evoke a place, an individual, or a community without objectifying their subject? In this course we will study magazine ethics and read work by the genre’s most effective storytellers, including Ted Conover, Adrienne Nicole Leblanc, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Luis Alberto Urrea, and Nikole Hannah-Jones. Students will undertake two story assignments of their own. We will workshop reporting plans and drafts during class sessions.