advancing the story

Melissa forwards the following links:

The first is to a story by Sports Illustrated writer Jeff Pearlman, who used the recent tragedy of the athletes recently lost in the Gulf of Mexico as the newshook for an elegant story that remembers Anthony Latham, who drowned under similar circumstances in 1983. Pay special attention to the way in which the story develops, its fluid structure, and most importantly, the ending.

As all good endings should, it lingers. As Melissa wrote, "I would kill to have written that last line."

But equally worth a read, especially for any enterprising reporters, is this link to Pearlman's blog in which he outlines his development of the story, step by step. bk