Second draft of history

Dear friends,

Back in 1914, journalist George Helgesen Fitch defined a reporter as someone who “blocks out the first draft of history each day on a rheumatic typewriter.” If that’s the case, then maybe narrative journalism is the second draft.

With more time to reflect and deeper research, we longform writers add perspective, character development, plot tension, and a sense of place. Our work is not the final word on current events, but it’s a bit removed from the daily churn.

In the chaotic weeks following President Trump’s inauguration, journalists had little reflection time. Now we’re catching up: I’m seeing more mid-length and longer stories that put human faces on the upheaval that 2025 has wrought.

I want to share a few with you. Most are in written format. A couple are audio.

I also want to share some traditional investigative reporting, plus four stories that are not tied to U.S. headlines. I’ll finish with music, because sometimes I need an injection of beauty to make the news more bearable.

None of these creations are mine; I’m juggling several projects that you’ll read (and listen to) later this summer and fall. But I hope you appreciate them as much as I did.

Stories tied to American news:

• The “Chaos Graph” episode of This American Life, in which Nadia Reiman tells the story of a woman in New York who watched her law-abiding fiancé get handcuffed—and later learned he was at CECOT, the notorious El Salvador prison.

• George Black’s article on the 1980 murders of four American churchwomen in El Salvador. Black obtained enough new evidence to get to the bottom of who's responsible. (With El Salvador's human rights abuses and its collaboration with the U.S. so prominently in the news, this feels timely.)

• Erica Heilman on what happened when Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem paid a surprise visit to Derby Line, Vermont, where a library straddles the U.S.-Canada border. From the podcast Rumble Strip.

• Stephania Taladrid’s profile of Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, who must balance President Trump’s tumult with her own country’s needs.

• Andrew Marantz’s cautionary tale about Hungarian democracy.

• An anonymous federal employee describing what it’s like to work inside the Justice Department right now.

• Karina Elwood on a beloved music teacher who had his legal status yanked in March.

• Natalia Alamdari’s story about a Syrian refugee family that is divided between Jordan and Nebraska.

Investigative reporting I admire:

I have been appreciating the bold, meticulous work of the non-profit newsroom ProPublica. Here are three recent articles worth your time.

• Eric Umansky and Vernal Coleman obtained internal government emails chronicling how military veterans are losing access to critical care under the Trump administration, including lifesaving cancer trials.

• Kavitha Surana, Lizzie Presser, and Andrea Suozzo explained why miscarrying women in Houston are much more likely to die of infections than their peers in Dallas following Texas’ 2021 abortion ban. (Surana and Presser won a Pulitzer Prize this year for their stories linking abortion crackdowns and maternal deaths.)

• Corey G. Johnson unpacked how the consulting firm Cambridge Analytica used gun owners’ intimate data—underwear size, gambling habits, whether they felt financially burdened—to target them politically.

Other great reads:

• Line Vaaben visiting a Danish palliative care unit where staff treat fear of death as well as pain.

• Kevin Sieff and Francesco Porzio on how organized crime permeated Italian soccer.

• Molly Young spending a week in Finland, designated the world’s happiest country, during its dark and colorless winter.

• My former student Nina Moske on how improvisational music has freed her from the clock.

Music I’m listening to:

I recently heard Yola’s cover of Elton John’s Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, and it made my chest ache. Here she performs it at Farm Aid 2019.

The radio show Mountain Stage introduced me to the Americana quartet TopHouse, which began busking in Missoula, Montana and now tours the country from its home base of Nashville. 

See you this summer.  

All best,
Barry Yeoman

The Haskell Library postcard above was republished under a CC BY 4.0 license.