1. The Strange Case of Oscar Winner Gig Young-The Film Experience (2020)
Gig Young won the 1969 Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for "They Shoot Horses Don't They." Eight years after winning the award, he shot his fifth wife in his New York apartment and himself two minutes later. This makes him the only person to win an acting Oscar and commit murder (that we know of. Maybe Julie Andrews secretly went on a murder spree after her "Mary Poppins" win). Because both witnesses are dead, we don't have all the answers but I've always found his story compelling and have wanted to publish it for nine years. When the 50th Anniversary of his Oscar came up (April, 1970) I shopped this around and was paid a kill fee from one publication and than got another one to publish it. An added bonus was that the publication (www.thefilmexperience.net, an excellent one-stop source for Oscar news and more) had just done an excellent retrospective on the April 1970 Oscars so my piece fit in really well.
Link: http://thefilmexperience.net/blog/2020/4/29/50th-anniversary-the-strange-case-of-gig-youngs-oscar.html
2. Sometimes Waiting is the Hardest Part-Zebra Magazine (2020)
Occasionally, editors send you messages on Facebook which seems kind of weird at first but it does allow for faster communication. In this case, it was fortuitous because I had just posted a status message that I tested negative for COVID-19 and my editor jumped on it immediately. She wanted me to do a personal story. I decided to write something more personal about my fear of time and how not having anything to do suddenly made me a more free person. I veered into talking about this magical summer I had when I was 15 with my grandparents in the Florida Keys and did very little. This was one of the very few pieces I've written where I get to go personal.
Link: https://thezebra.org/2020/04/27/sometimes-waiting-is-the-hardest-part-one-writers-experience-with-fear-delay-and-a-virus-with-no-name/
3. Did the Writers Initially Intend for The Character on It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia to be Gay-Screen Prism (2016)
There is an amazing YouTube channel called the Take that used to be called Screenprism and was more article-focused at the time. I was paid a small amount to contribute articles but was really attracted to their form of academic writing. I'm a big fan of "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" and the subject of Mac's sexual orientation has often been a big topic of debate. Like many things in "It's Always in Sunny in Philadelphia" the character depth is extremely deep and clever, but Mac's orientation feels like a slightly sloppy directional shift and I thought this was worth exploring.
http://screenprism.com/insights/article/has-the-character-of-mac-on-its-always-sunny-in-philadelphia-always-been-ga
4. We Won't Stop Racism by Blacklisting Liam Neeson-The Federalist (2019)
At the Federalist (which I'm not sure is still present tense for me, haven't had as much editor communication), I had the chance to express my opinions on the excesses of woke thinking in front of an audience. In times of such polarization it felt very cathartic to opine on how I think the world could be fixed. While this is a very right wing site (the commenters, in particular, are extreme), I don't see my publication on the site as an endorsement of their other positions and I think those readers benefit from my centrist views. This article's headline is a bit non-evergreen as people reading a year later will have no idea what Liam Neeson did but hey I didn't pick the headline.
The article spoke of a personal experience I had at a convention of people who I assumed would have opposite views of me. In person I was surprised to find that these same simplistic platitudes I'd heard yelled over twitter were coming from people I had more empathy for when they expressed their voices in more than 140 characters. That formed the basis of my article against both parties that we needed to stop creating headlines out of twitter squabbles. This article was rejected twice by the same publication before they accepted it which is a first for me.
https://thefederalist.com/2019/02/20/wont-solve-racism-blacklisting-liam-neeson/
5. Local Chefs with Ties to Louisiana Bring Mardi Gras Celebration-DC Line (2020)
This was just an excuse to go to a happening Mardi Gras festival. People worried about the ethics of using journalism for a free admission needn't worry because I still had to pay a (reduced) fee but often journalism is a great excuse to get out of the house and experience something fun. I'm not necessarily confident enough in my dancing to just bust out moves during musical celebrations, so I felt a lot more comfortable observing from a distance and taking pictures.
This story was originally pitched in 2017 for the Washington Post Magazine when I knew an editor there and it wasn't until 2020 that I published it and it's always nice to use an idea that's been waiting in the pipeline.
https://thedcline.org/2020/03/06/local-celebrity-chef-and-friends-bring-louisiana-spirit-to-mardi-gras-fundraiser-for-dc-central-kitchen/
6. Cherry Blossoms Come Under Threat-The DC Line (2020)
The impetus for the story wasn't really impressive: I saw a blurb about it somewhere else and thought it would be ripe for pitching somewhere else. After circulating it around, the DC Line picked it up. I started out walking to the Jefferson Memorial where the action was and this was a great idea because I got a great feel for the place by being on the ground and got 3 of my 5 sources on site. I talked to a jogger really quick and got a quote from her and found a couple tour guides who were generous with their time. Sometimes when I go on site, I don't necessarily plan it and this was one of those times where it was equally as likely that I could have come back with nothing and had to go back to the traditional route of waiting for phone calls and PR people who will take too long to get back to you.
An example of that was a park ranger I talked who referred me to the communications office for the National Park Service who never got back to me over the course of the entire article's length. Fortunately, I went to a park ranger and asked him to talk to me about it off the record. This was one of the last pieces I did before Corona went into effect. Aww, how I miss on site reporting.
https://thedcline.org/2020/03/24/entering-its-second-year-initiative-strives-to-protect-tidal-basin-and-its-cherry-trees-at-a-pivotal-moment/
7. Beast Coast Returns to Rosslyn-Arlington Magazine (2019)
I was walking around Rosslyn a few years ago when I noticed people doing flips and stuff. The difference between me and someone who's not a reporter: I dropped what I was doing and asked what was going on. This story resulted. I only got to do the preview but I later got to go to the event and it was a lot of fun to see people running and jumping.
https://www.arlingtonmagazine.com/beast-coast-parkour-returns-to-rosslyn/
8. Larry Hogan's Plan to Widen Toll Lanes Stalled by Opposition-Washington Times (2019)
This one was a bit exhausting because it involved driving approximately 45 minutes (over an hour and a half in rush hour traffic) to a couple meetings. I lost my phone in the first instance and had an expensive zipcar ride trying to get it back with no results. Because the pictures were on the phone, I had to go a second time to the middle of nowhere to get pictures.
I am eternally indebted to some activists who gave me a ride. On the way over, I tried to explain that I had the information I needed but I soon realized there was a tremendous amount of new information to absorb. When writing the transportation beat for the Washington Times, I rarely think about transportation but I come into contact with people who are very passionate about the issue. It's slightly inspiring to see people civically engaged in a matter you don't think about very often. We often are troubled by traffic (and I can imagine in Maryland, it's even more of a problem) but how many people actually do anything to fix it?
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/nov/26/larry-hogan-maryland-i-270-widening-plan-toll-lane/
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