{"id":7112,"date":"2026-03-31T11:48:05","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T15:48:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fm.hunter.cuny.edu\/journalism\/?p=7112"},"modified":"2026-03-31T11:48:06","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T15:48:06","slug":"senior-editor-brendan-fitzgerald-highlights-the-intersection-of-reporting-writing-thinking-and-questioning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fm.hunter.cuny.edu\/journalism\/index.php\/2026\/03\/31\/senior-editor-brendan-fitzgerald-highlights-the-intersection-of-reporting-writing-thinking-and-questioning\/","title":{"rendered":"Senior Editor Brendan Fitzgerald Highlights the Intersection of Reporting, Writing, Thinking, and Questioning"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-gallery has-nested-images columns-default is-cropped wp-block-gallery-1 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"512\" height=\"300\" data-id=\"7113\" src=\"https:\/\/fm.hunter.cuny.edu\/journalism\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/unnamed-1.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-7113\" srcset=\"https:\/\/fm.hunter.cuny.edu\/journalism\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/unnamed-1.png 512w, https:\/\/fm.hunter.cuny.edu\/journalism\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/unnamed-1-300x176.png 300w, https:\/\/fm.hunter.cuny.edu\/journalism\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/unnamed-1-380x223.png 380w, https:\/\/fm.hunter.cuny.edu\/journalism\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/unnamed-1-165x97.png 165w, https:\/\/fm.hunter.cuny.edu\/journalism\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/unnamed-1-372x218.png 372w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 512px) 100vw, 512px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Zooming in from Canada, Brendan Fitzgerald, a senior editor at Longreads, spoke to Hunter College students in Professor David Alm\u2019s feature writing class about tips and tricks for long-form and feature style writing &#8211; and what separates a good story from a great one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">From reporting at his local daily news to the Columbia Journal Review to writing and curating as a senior editor, Fitzgerald has had his fair share of different types of writing styles.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One point Fitzgerald stressed is the importance of talking to others when writing and reporting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cYou won\u2019t lose control of your story by sharing and asking questions,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Speaking with experts and breaking the boundaries of a story make it stronger. Good reporting is crucial to a story&#8217;s impact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&nbsp;There is a balance of haughtiness and humility when writing. The reporter is in control, but as Fitzgerald told the class, \u201cengage with a diversity of perspectives and lived experiences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Meet with experts in a field you know nothing about.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">According to Fitzgerald, reporting is not just writing what you already know. It\u2019s opening novels and genres that are foreign to you, and it\u2019s thinking in uncomfortable ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cIt\u2019s an instructive way of shaking your thinking up,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The way to write a story that holds power is knowing when to ask questions and speak to others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Longform writing allows the writer to speak to experts, hear perspectives, and experience the culture. That is how writers should be reporting, and that is the benefit of longform journalism: \u201cit begins at a place of uncertainty and proceeds from there.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Zooming in from Canada, Brendan Fitzgerald, a senior editor at Longreads, spoke to Hunter College students in Professor David Alm\u2019s feature writing class about tips and tricks for long-form and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":7113,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[324],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-guest-speakers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fm.hunter.cuny.edu\/journalism\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fm.hunter.cuny.edu\/journalism\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fm.hunter.cuny.edu\/journalism\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fm.hunter.cuny.edu\/journalism\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/45"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fm.hunter.cuny.edu\/journalism\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7112"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/fm.hunter.cuny.edu\/journalism\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7112\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7114,"href":"https:\/\/fm.hunter.cuny.edu\/journalism\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7112\/revisions\/7114"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fm.hunter.cuny.edu\/journalism\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fm.hunter.cuny.edu\/journalism\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fm.hunter.cuny.edu\/journalism\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fm.hunter.cuny.edu\/journalism\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}