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Lord Zedd-Repulsa
Jul 21, 2007

Devour a good book.


Longform articles are longer than usual pieces, typically in magazines and newspapers. They can be on any subject and they tend to be serious and informative. A lot of crime ones get posted in the PYF Unnerving thread so I decided to give them their own place to shine.

Thread Rules
1. Don't mock the source. Even places like Buzzfeed can have great writing in their news section. This piece on murder, lies, and Munchausen syndrome by proxy is a first rate example.
2. Give a little bit of information with your links. An Esquire article about a fire so hot the hoses were useless and the men trapped inside the blaze may not be what you, or someone else, is in the mood for reading right now.
3. Warn for NWS/NMS content.
4. Don't be an rear end if someone posts content you don't like. Do report if site rules are broken.

Skip Hollandsworth writes a lot of Texas crime stories and they're usually great. Texas Monthly in general has good content.

https://longform.org/ is a huge collection. https://longreads.com/ has plenty and http://narrative.ly/ has some here and there. Feel free to share your favorite sites for them as well.

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Avshalom
Feb 14, 2012

by Lowtax
this mother jones piece on the private prison system in america, by a reporter who worked there undercover as a guard for four months, is a must-read imo

Flaggy
Jul 6, 2007

Grandpa Cthulu needs his napping chair



Grimey Drawer
https://magazine.atavist.com/a-thousand-pounds-of-dynamite

A guy who builds a homemade bomb, the FBI is stumped, and a slighted casino. This is the one I send to all my friends looking for longform articles.

RC and Moon Pie
May 5, 2011

Some favorites:

The Divine Inspiration of Jim Jones. What Jim Jones borrowed from Father Divine, a New York- and Philadelphia-based minister.

quote:

Jones returned to Indiana full of enthusiasm—and already plotting to supersede Father Divine. By then, the aging Divine was too old to preach. Tape recordings of his sermons were played over loudspeakers at the Peace Mission banquets—as they still are today—and Father Divine seldom ventured beyond Woodmont. The movement, Jones believed, was ripe for a takeover, and he was the man for the job.

The Power of One. Bonnie Richardson is the only competitor from her track team at the state meet. She singlehandedly won the competition for the school. The next year, she did it again.

Duel in the Sun: The 1982 Boston Marathon. The top runners battled the entire way, making for a fantastic race and changing both their lives.

The True Story Of The Fake Zombies, The Strangest Con In Rock History. The Zombies had broken up by the time Time of the Season became a hit in America. It didn't stop a few promoters from putting together a tour.

O Sister, Where Art Thou. A Skip Hollandsworth article about an extremely popular all-girls band ... inmates in a Texas prison.

soundsection
May 10, 2010
https://magazine.atavist.com/american-hippopotamus

"This is a story about hippopotamuses, as advertised, but it’s also a story about two very complicated and exceptional men. These men were spies. They were also bitter enemies. Each wanted to kill the other and fully expected to feel really good about himself afterward. Eccentric circumstances—circumstances having to do with hippopotamuses—would join these men together as allies and even dear friends. But then, eventually, they’d be driven into opposition again"

soundsection
May 10, 2010
http://reprints.longform.org/angels-demons

"On June 4, 1989, the bodies of Jo, Michelle and Christe were found floating in Tampa Bay. This is the story of the murders, their aftermath, and the handful of people who kept faith amid the unthinkable."

Fair warning, this is one of the most horrifying things I have read.

Jayme
Jul 16, 2008
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/09/07/trial-by-fire

Cameron Todd Willingham was arrested and sent to death row for committing arson; however, researchers reviewing the evidence find that he was likely innocent after all.

Avshalom
Feb 14, 2012

by Lowtax
the really big one, an earthquake and tsunami that will possibly either completely devastate the pacific northwest (1/10 chance) or just smash it up a bit (1/3) within the next fifty years. may be :nms: if you're terrified of unavoidable natural disasters, as many people are. here's a taste:

quote:

Among natural disasters, tsunamis may be the closest to being completely unsurvivable. The only likely way to outlive one is not to be there when it happens: to steer clear of the vulnerable area in the first place, or get yourself to high ground as fast as possible. For the seventy-one thousand people who live in Cascadia’s inundation zone, that will mean evacuating in the narrow window after one disaster ends and before another begins. They will be notified to do so only by the earthquake itself—“a vibrate-alert system,” Kevin Cupples, the city planner for the town of Seaside, Oregon, jokes—and they are urged to leave on foot, since the earthquake will render roads impassable. Depending on location, they will have between ten and thirty minutes to get out. That time line does not allow for finding a flashlight, tending to an earthquake injury, hesitating amid the ruins of a home, searching for loved ones, or being a Good Samaritan. “When that tsunami is coming, you run,” Jay Wilson, the chair of the Oregon Seismic Safety Policy Advisory Commission (osspac), says. “You protect yourself, you don’t turn around, you don’t go back to save anybody. You run for your life.”

Pingiivi
Mar 26, 2010

Straight into the iris!
There's a bunch of long form sport articles on Sports Illustrated: http://www.si.com/longform/index.html

I'd recommend this one about Donnie Moore. It's a tragic story that ended in a suicide: http://www.si.com/longform/donnie-moore/index.html

Pingiivi
Mar 26, 2010

Straight into the iris!
For some reason most of the longform stuff I read are pretty sad/terrible. Here's a 2010 Pulitzer winner:
Fatal Distraction: Forgetting a Child in the Backseat of a Car Is a Horrifying Mistake. Is It a Crime?

Aphex-
Jan 29, 2006

Dinosaur Gum

soundsection posted:

http://reprints.longform.org/angels-demons

"On June 4, 1989, the bodies of Jo, Michelle and Christe were found floating in Tampa Bay. This is the story of the murders, their aftermath, and the handful of people who kept faith amid the unthinkable."

Fair warning, this is one of the most horrifying things I have read.

Seconding this one, I could not stop reading it. It's incredibly sad but such a good article.

Avshalom
Feb 14, 2012

by Lowtax
another tsunami story, ghosts of the tsunami is a very beautiful and sad article about grieving and spirituality in the wake of the devastation in japan, featuring a local priest busy pacifying the angry and confused ghosts of people who died. it's heartbreaking. a sample:

quote:

When grief is raw the presence of the deceased is overwhelming. In households that lost children in the tsunami it became routine, after half an hour of tea and chat, to be asked if I would like to ‘meet’ the dead sons and daughters. I would be led to a shrine covered with framed photographs, toys, favourite drinks and snacks, letters, drawings and school exercise books. One mother had commissioned Photoshopped portraits of her children, showing them as they would have been had they lived: a boy who died in primary school smiling proudly in high school uniform, a teenage girl as she should have looked in a kimono at her coming of age ceremony. Here, every morning, she began the day by talking to her dead children, weeping love and apology, as unselfconsciously as if she were speaking over a long-distance telephone line.

Pingiivi
Mar 26, 2010

Straight into the iris!
I almost forgot that the whole Pain and Gain story is available on Miami New Times. This weird bodybuilding/kidnap/murder saga was also made as a (pretty good IMO) movie a couple of years ago. It's a long one and as a fair warning it gets really, really macabre like barbequing peoples remains macabre at the latter parts.

Pain & Gain by Pete Collins

Danger
Jan 4, 2004

all desire - the thirst for oil, war, religious salvation - needs to be understood according to what he calls 'the demonogrammatical decoding of the Earth's body'

Pingiivi posted:

For some reason most of the longform stuff I read are pretty sad/terrible. Here's a 2010 Pulitzer winner:
Fatal Distraction: Forgetting a Child in the Backseat of a Car Is a Horrifying Mistake. Is It a Crime?

I read this years ago, soon before I had kids. It still stays with me as perhaps the most devastating piece of journalism I've ever read.

Pigsfeet on Rye
Oct 22, 2008

I'm meat on the hoof

Pingiivi posted:

I almost forgot that the whole Pain and Gain story is available on Miami New Times. This weird bodybuilding/kidnap/murder saga was also made as a (pretty good IMO) movie a couple of years ago. It's a long one and as a fair warning it gets really, really macabre like barbequing peoples remains macabre at the latter parts.

Pain & Gain by Pete Collins

Holy gently caress, that's quite an article. That gym was just a den of scumbaggery.

Carnival of Shrews
Mar 27, 2013

You're not David Attenborough
A one-way ticket to Honduras: the fake C18 Colony of Poyais, and its 'Cazique', Gregor MacGregor (for anyone interested in con-artists. Financially detailed, but counts the human cost too):

The king of con-men (The Economist)

A serial killer finds a newly vulnerable class of victims: white, working-class men (financial serial killers of astonishing meanness are not rare, but the cases usually don't get as much in-depth attention as this. A gripping tale):

Murder by Craigslist (The Atlantic)

CannonFodder
Jan 26, 2001

Passion’s Wrench
http://www.sbnation.com/longform/2015/3/4/8126311/north-wilkesboro-speedway-after-nascar

20 years after the last Nascar Cup race, North Wilkesboro Speedway sits quiet, and someone comes by every week to mow the grass. The history of stock car racing: the moonshine, the modified cars, and the drivers running shine down skinny twisting roads, is set to the side as the sport changes to a new era.

CannonFodder has a new favorite as of 18:17 on Mar 14, 2017

gvibes
Jan 18, 2010

Leading us to the promised land (i.e., one tournament win in five years)

soundsection posted:

http://reprints.longform.org/angels-demons

"On June 4, 1989, the bodies of Jo, Michelle and Christe were found floating in Tampa Bay. This is the story of the murders, their aftermath, and the handful of people who kept faith amid the unthinkable."

Fair warning, this is one of the most horrifying things I have read.
Thirding this one. I think it is the best piece of long-form journalism I've read.

Flaggy
Jul 6, 2007

Grandpa Cthulu needs his napping chair



Grimey Drawer

soundsection posted:

http://reprints.longform.org/angels-demons

"On June 4, 1989, the bodies of Jo, Michelle and Christe were found floating in Tampa Bay. This is the story of the murders, their aftermath, and the handful of people who kept faith amid the unthinkable."

Fair warning, this is one of the most horrifying things I have read.

Just finished this one myself, after the one I posted, I think this is the best one ever written. Incredible piece of writing.

Here is one of the sinking of the Costa Concordia that is excellent.

http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2012/05/costa-concordia-sinking-scandal-italy

Flaggy has a new favorite as of 18:39 on Mar 14, 2017

FortMan
Jan 10, 2012

Viva Romanesco!

A Murder Foretold
Guatemalan attorney Rodrigo Rosenberg was murdered in 2009. How he died is rather simple. Why he died, on the other hand, is rather complicated. Prove the saying at fiction has to be credible, real life doesn't.

Pingiivi
Mar 26, 2010

Straight into the iris!

Flaggy posted:

https://magazine.atavist.com/a-thousand-pounds-of-dynamite

A guy who builds a homemade bomb, the FBI is stumped, and a slighted casino. This is the one I send to all my friends looking for longform articles.

I hadn't heard about this one before. This is straight up some James Bond supervillain stuff.

CannonFodder
Jan 26, 2001

Passion’s Wrench

Pingiivi posted:

For some reason most of the longform stuff I read are pretty sad/terrible.
Most of these are, even the one I posted, which is why these make me feel all good again:

RC and Moon Pie posted:

Some favorites:
The Power of One. Bonnie Richardson is the only competitor from her track team at the state meet. She singlehandedly won the competition for the school. The next year, she did it again.

Duel in the Sun: The 1982 Boston Marathon. The top runners battled the entire way, making for a fantastic race and changing both their lives.

Pingiivi
Mar 26, 2010

Straight into the iris!
The Doomsday Scam tells about this mysterious red mercury that can be easily made into devastating weapons of mass destruction. It also might just be an elaborate scam to prank terrorists.

The Doomsday Scam by C.J. Chivers

Flaggy
Jul 6, 2007

Grandpa Cthulu needs his napping chair



Grimey Drawer

Pingiivi posted:

I hadn't heard about this one before. This is straight up some James Bond supervillain stuff.

I bet I have read through this at least 5 times. Explained it countless other times to people.

PTA Parents attempt to discredit a women because of the smallest slight against them. This one is fascinating, the LA Times released it a bit at a time, now the whole thing is up to be read.

http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-me-framed/?src=longreads

A ship carrying a ton of Mazda's sink. This is the article that goes through the sinking and the rescue.

https://www.wired.com/2008/02/ff-seacowboys/

Flaggy has a new favorite as of 20:49 on Mar 14, 2017

El Gallinero Gros
Mar 17, 2010
A good longform about Dave Chappelle's decision to bail on his crazy successful show and semi-retire to a small town in Ohio.

http://www.believermag.com/issues/201310/?read=article_ghansah

Happy post-script: Chappelle seems to be making a comeback (he has a special coming out on Netflix next week), and he and Neal Brennan (his Chappelle's Show/Half-Baked co-writer and long time friend) are on speaking terms again.

Pigsfeet on Rye
Oct 22, 2008

I'm meat on the hoof

Flaggy posted:

I bet I have read through this at least 5 times. Explained it countless other times to people.

PTA Parents attempt to discredit a women because of the smallest slight against them. This one is fascinating, the LA Times released it a bit at a time, now the whole thing is up to be read.

http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-me-framed/?src=longreads

A ship carrying a ton of Mazda's sink. This is the article that goes through the sinking and the rescue.

https://www.wired.com/2008/02/ff-seacowboys/

These are both good reads. A slight correction, though: the car carrier (MV Cougar Ace) didn't sink; it rolled over to almost 80 degrees, but Titan managed to get it righted. It's still sailing today.

Fanky Malloons
Aug 21, 2010

Is your social worker inside that horse?

soundsection posted:

https://magazine.atavist.com/american-hippopotamus

"This is a story about hippopotamuses, as advertised, but it’s also a story about two very complicated and exceptional men. These men were spies. They were also bitter enemies. Each wanted to kill the other and fully expected to feel really good about himself afterward. Eccentric circumstances—circumstances having to do with hippopotamuses—would join these men together as allies and even dear friends. But then, eventually, they’d be driven into opposition again"

Came here to post this one -- it's one of my faves. Early 20th century American insanity is a great anecdote to all the doomy and/or murdery articles that have been and will get posted ITT.

Coca Koala
Nov 28, 2005

ongoing nowhere
College Slice
The Great Paper Caper

This is a pretty excellent story about a guy who runs a counterfeiting ring, with a punchline that sounds straight out of a movie.

Pick
Jul 19, 2009
Nap Ghost
The Strange Case of Anna Stubblefield

A professor of ethics rapes a mentally disabled man and thinks she is a hero for it.

fits
Jan 1, 2008

Love Always,
The Captain
‘We’re the Only Plane in the Sky’, an oral history of the confusion and chaos in the hours after 9/11 and where Bush's staff took him to the safest place they could think of: in Air Force One, with American airspace completely shut down

Arsenic Lupin
Apr 12, 2012

This particularly rapid💨 unintelligible 😖patter💁 isn't generally heard🧏‍♂️, and if it is🤔, it doesn't matter💁.


Two of the classic stories that created and shaped the form.

John Hersey, Hiroshima. The entirety of the August 31, 1946 New Yorker was this story.
Gay Talese, Frank Sinatra Has A Cold. Gay Talese can't get a solid interview from Sinatra, so he writes a story about the negative space around Sinatra.

DPM
Feb 23, 2015

TAKE ME HOME
I'LL CHECK YA BUM FOR GRUBS

Arsenic Lupin posted:

Two of the classic stories that created and shaped the form.

John Hersey, Hiroshima. The entirety of the August 31, 1946 New Yorker was this story.
Gay Talese, Frank Sinatra Has A Cold. Gay Talese can't get a solid interview from Sinatra, so he writes a story about the negative space around Sinatra.

Let us not forget the controversial LF by Gay Talese, The Voyeurs Motel. Roman à Clefs are okay ITT right?

LeJackal
Apr 5, 2011

Pingiivi posted:

For some reason most of the longform stuff I read are pretty sad/terrible. Here's a 2010 Pulitzer winner:
Fatal Distraction: Forgetting a Child in the Backseat of a Car Is a Horrifying Mistake. Is It a Crime?

Holy mother of christ that makes me want to crawl into a bottle and never come out.

Avshalom
Feb 14, 2012

by Lowtax
the child exchange a multi-part investigation into online groups where parents sell off their adopted children that haven't worked out to people who don't want to shell out cash to do the whole adoption process themselves. you know how you adopt a dog, but it pees on your floor, so you palm it off to someone else? like that, but with humans! :nms: for sexual abuse and general horror, but it's an excellent piece of journalism.

quote:

The practice is called "private re-homing," a term typically used by owners seeking new homes for their pets. Based on solicitations posted on one of eight similar online bulletin boards, the parallels are striking.

"Born in October of 2000 – this handsome boy, 'Rick' was placed from India a year ago and is obedient and eager to please," one ad for a child read.

A woman who said she is from Nebraska offered an 11-year-old boy she had adopted from Guatemala. "I am totally ashamed to say it but we do truly hate this boy!" she wrote in a July 2012 post.

Pingiivi
Mar 26, 2010

Straight into the iris!
I.R.A. kidnapped Jean McConville. Her kids want to know what happened to her.

Where the bodies are buried by Patrick Radden Keefe

Avshalom
Feb 14, 2012

by Lowtax
something a bit more lighthearted and recent that i liked: all queens must die, the story of the effort to exterminate the invasive argentine ant from santa cruz island and protect its delicate ecology

quote:

Holway beat at the dense, low-lying branches of the scrub with a special net, called a beating net, perfect for dislodging insects from the canopy. Bits of oak fell into the net, then a jumping spider, and then an ant. "Ah. Yes. Camponotus maritimus, a carpenter ant endemic to California. They’re gorgeous," Holway said. It was a fine-looking ant, I said. Probably the finest ant I’d ever seen. "Notice the two tones on the body," Holway said. "And the nice legs." "They’ve got great legs," Boser said. I nodded.

Bamabalacha
Sep 18, 2006

Outta my way, ya dumb rah-rah!

fits posted:

‘We’re the Only Plane in the Sky’, an oral history of the confusion and chaos in the hours after 9/11 and where Bush's staff took him to the safest place they could think of: in Air Force One, with American airspace completely shut down

Oooh, I wanted to reread that and was about to ask someone to post a link, thanks!

RNG
Jul 9, 2009

Pingiivi posted:

I.R.A. kidnapped Jean McConville. Her kids want to know what happened to her.

Where the bodies are buried by Patrick Radden Keefe

I'd read this before but it's an excellent article.

The Devil And John Holmes, about the Wonderland murders. A porn star's drug addiction has horrible consequences.

The Crossing Reaaaally long (33 parts) article about the worst traffic accident in Colorado history (a train striking a school bus). It goes into the stories of everyone affected both then and now; kind of a tearjerker.

BattyKiara
Mar 17, 2009
Are we allowed to ask for help finding longform articles in this thread? I once read an article about Hispanic homeless children. They had invented a mythology. About a Blue Lady who grants wishes. It was forbidden to speak to adults about the lady . It was a pretty heart breaking piece. Anyone have any clue what I'm talking about?

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redneck nazgul
Apr 25, 2013

BattyKiara posted:

Are we allowed to ask for help finding longform articles in this thread? I once read an article about Hispanic homeless children. They had invented a mythology. About a Blue Lady who grants wishes. It was forbidden to speak to adults about the lady . It was a pretty heart breaking piece. Anyone have any clue what I'm talking about?

http://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/myths-over-miami-6393117

This what you're talking about?

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