What I love most about long-form pieces is they often have the best details. Maybe it’s the space that long-form provides, or maybe it’s the people that write long-form vs. short-form. But they make the stories so much better. It really shows the importance of the journalist being there, immersed in the story – that just makes it better.

In the Dancing for their Lives piece, there are so many great details. The scene with the women getting ready in the bathroom is great – familiar to anyone who has seen any teen movie (and, I presume, many women have experienced this image themselves). And, when detailing the dance floor, calling the women “merchandise” in the eyes of men is very poignant – it exacts a particular image. And the images of the women on the dance floor were also very illustrative, especially the woman with the cigarette:

“She appeared to be listening to music from some distant time inside her head; eyes closed, she mouthed the lyrics of traditional laments of loss. With each refrain, her eyes moistened and she took the cigarette she was holding and brought the burning tip close to the exposed skin above her breasts. Over and over she brought the smoldering tobacco near her naked skin, about to inflict pain, but stopping short of contact.”

This is such a beautiful description; I can close my eyes and see her in the red dress with her cigarette. I can watch her movements because they are described with such detail. Though I wonder how much of her emotional description is real or interpretation… gee I wish I could ask the author.

I thought the article on Halabi was really well written, but I am curious about some of the choices. For example, the choice to not include the fact that Halabi never spoke to Taub and that most of his quotes are from the interview with the asylum officer until mid-way through the article was interesting. I noted that he kept saying “Halabi said later” which was interesting, specific phrasing, and then he revealed later why he phrased it that way. Also interesting is starting out with Brunner – it is perhaps a little disorienting, but I did appreciate Taub making the parallels between Brunner and Halabi clearer throughout the piece (especially ending with the comparison). But I do like building Halabi’s life, movements, and mysteries by piecing together the puzzle: talking to people like Tayara or reviewing the asylum interview transcripts or going over the CIJA investigation.

I also found the article about Sayyid the garbageman fascinating.  It is really cool to read about people we wouldn’t normally hear from, and hearing how the system works in a foreign country like Egypt. As Hessler alluded, the reader does learn a lot from following Sayyid around the streets and fire escapes of Cairo. The pills example was particularly striking (though perhaps it’s because it comes up again later in the article). The fight between Sayyid and his wife, too, was illustrative – with the different “weapons” (money and words).

I do wonder about the first-person nature of these articles. I’ve been trained as a journalist to keep myself out of the story – I am not the story, the characters (or subjects) are – but both the dance club and Sayyid had the author at least a secondary part of a larger story.  It was almost as if they are a character themselves. The audience was keenly aware they were looking through the writer’s eyes. What is the reasoning for this?