There is space for a different kind of investigative reporting that's about immersion and obsessive attention to detail and deep listening.
Sarah StillmanWorkers are actually being starved on the largest military base in Baghdad, and women are being raped with impunity - and because it doesn't fit into a Hollywood context it's not going to fly.
Sarah StillmanSo much of our cultural representation of what an investigative journalist looks like, in movies and pop culture, is about this really testosterone-filled dude screaming, "Give me what you got!" I didn't see myself as someone who would be good at or comfortable with that.
Sarah StillmanWhat narrative journalism does is create a language or open up a space where someone can say, "Oh, this happened to me, too."
Sarah StillmanOne thing I've discovered is that I never think of something that didn't work out as just "something that didn't work out." I think so often with investigative work, things that initially look like failures wind up leading to your biggest stories.
Sarah StillmanI tend to gravitate toward the "act two," or "act three," or "act four" stories - either things that are underreported, where we think we already know the common narrative, or things that are at the margins of an over-reported story, where we're all so focused in one direction that we're missing something crucial that's unfolding off to the side.
Sarah Stillman