Masha Gessen’s “The Brothers: The Road to an American Tragedy,” about the Tsarnaev brothers, accused of orchestrating the bombing at the Boston Marathon finish line in 2013, will be published by Riverhead in April. Read more
The Boston Marathon bombings may well have been America's first fully interactive national tragedy. During a roundtable conversation on Wednesday, May 1, 2013, invited guests and audience members discussed what we can learn from the coverage of the Marathon bombings. Read more
Brian McGrory was named editor of The Boston Globe just four months before the Boston Marathon bombings captured the world’s attention. Ten days into that coverage, McGrory spoke with David L. Marcus, NF ’96, the Globe’s former diplomatic correspondent, who worked with McGrory in the Globe’s Washington bureau in the 1990s. Read more
Twitter coverage of the manhunt in Watertown marks a wake-up call to journalists everywhere. Even more remarkable are the implications for ordinary citizens who, without a press pass, intentionally plant themselves on the scene to witness and tweet what they see in real time. For the latter group of news gatherers, this event instills a newfound sense of power and responsibility in how they verify and disseminate news; i.e., gain credibility and authority as a news source. Read more
In a breaking news situation, journalists get an adrenaline rush. There is a palpable eagerness to get the scoop, to be the first to bring the story to the public. In today's world of social media, mobile phones, and real-time 24/7 news cycle, though, journalists face competition from all sides: eyewitness accounts, official sources, and even friends and family are sharing news before mainstream news institutions have "published" the official news story. Read more
As part of his Nieman Fellowship, Boston Globe reporter David Abel is taking a class on how to make documentary films. Yesterday he was working on his final project, about Juli Windsor, the first dwarf to run the Boston Marathon. He woke up at 5 o'clock in the morning and went to film Windsor getting ready, then took the bus with her to Hopkinton, where the race starts. He was standing on the finish line, shooting footage of all the runners coming across and waiting for Windsor to come in when the bombs went off. Read more
The explosions at the Boston Marathon made front-page news around the world, with Líberation in Paris, El País in Madrid, and The Jerusalem Post in Israel carrying coverage from 2013 Nieman Fellows Ludovic Blecher, Borja Echevarria, and Yaakov Katz, respectively. Read more
