Political stories - #399
Looking back, I've sent your attention, through these weekly links lists, to far too many political stories that were of the moment. There was some decent writing in them: nothing motivates a journalist so much as thinking they can move the political needle. But you don't really remember the stories, aside from those that, entertaining as they were, were infamously wrong. Even the best political writers tend to keep their aperture too narrow to write anything that lasts. (This is probably because they're on a recurring deadline.) And, if you wait a few months, most of those of-the-moment pieces turn out to be, if not wrong, woefully incomplete. What kinds of stories last? The aperture needs to be a little wider than what's happening write now. |