About

Meet the Team Behind The Sunday Long Read.

The goal of The Sunday Long Read newsletter is simple: To put the past week’s best journalism in your hands every Sunday morning—or, as a friend said, “to screw up my Sundays with far too much great stuff to read.” You can subscribe here.

Obviously, compiling these lists is a wildly subjective exercise. How do we choose what’s “best?” If we finish a long-read article and immediately want to recommend it to a friend, you’ll find it linked here. These stories brought us pleasure, made us laugh and think and, most of all, told us something we didn’t know. No “hot takes” here.

At this point you’re wondering – who are “we”?  Well, these are our founders:

Don Van Natta Jr.

For nearly 30 years, Don has worked as an investigative reporter, including his current position as a senior writer for ESPN and a contributor to ESPN’s “Outside the Lines.” He was also the host and co-executive producer of ESPN’s award-winning “Backstory”– all four episodes of the docuseries can be streamed on ESPN+. A member of three Pulitzer Prize-winning teams, Don is also the New York Times bestselling author of three books: First Off the Tee, Her Way and Wonder Girl.

Before joining ESPN in 2012, he worked for 16 years at The New York Times, where he was based in Washington, London, Miami and New York, and he began his career at The Miami Herald. His longform writing for ESPN was anthologized four times in The Best American Sports Writing and once in The Best American Magazine Writing. In 2016, Don was honored by the Society of Professional Journalists as a Fellow of the Society.

In 2000, he won the Distinguished Alumni Award from Boston University’s College of Communication. He is also a member of the Don Bosco Prep Hall of Fame

He lives in Miami with his wife, the award-winning journalist Lizette Alvarez, now a contributing opinion columnist for The Washington

Jacob Feldman

Jacob is a business reporter at Sportico. He previously wrote for Sports Illustrated, where he primarily covered the intersection of sports, media, and the internet. He also covered the NFL and launched The MMQB’s daily newsletter, The Morning Huddle. Jacob’s writing has also appeared in Popular Science, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, The Miami Herald, and The Charlotte Observer. He is a graduate of Harvard University, where he won 1st and 2nd place Sports Story of the Year prizes from the Associated Collegiate Press while also earning recognition in the categories of in-depth news reporting and multimedia journalism. He was the recipient of the school’s 2015 Thomas Wood Award for journalism. A North Carolina native, Jacob currently lives in Boston.

An icon representing binoculars.

And of course, this wouldn’t all be possible without the rest of our hard-working staff.

Producer, Junior Editor: Étienne Lajoie
Senior Recycling Editor: Jack Shafer
Senior Photo Editor: Patrick Farrell
Senior Music Editor: Kelly Dearmore
Senior Podcast Editor: Jo Piazza
Senior Editor of Esoterica: Ryan M. Rodenberg
Senior Originals Editor: Peter Bailey-Wells
Sunday Comics Editor: Alex Segura
Senior Books Editor: Jacqueline Nyathi
Sunday Cartoonists: Gus D’Angelo, Jake Goldwasser
Contributing Writer: Sonia Weiser

Digital Team: Nation Hahn, Nickolaus Hines, Megan McDonell, Alexa Steinberg
Podcast Team: Peter Bailey-Wells, Cary Barbor, Julian McKenzie, Jonathan Yales
Webmaster: Ana Srikanth
Campus Editor: Peter Warren
Junior Producers: Joe Levin, Veronica Dickson La Rotta

Contributing Writers: Meg Bernhard, Max Blau, Jack El-Hai, Anmol Irfan, Annelise Jolley, Emily Monaco, Kate Raphael, Ellyn Ritterskamp, Amanda Ulrich, Leah Vann, Boen Wang, Patricia Kelly Yeo

Contributing Editors: Bruce Arthur, Shaun Assael, Nick Aster, Jody Avirgan, Alex Belth, Sara J. Benincasa, Jonathan Bernstein, Sara Blask, Greg Bishop, Taffy Brodesser-Akner, Maria Bustillos, Steve Caruso, Kyle Chayka, Chris Cillizza, Doug Bock Clark, Anna Katherine Clemmons, Stephanie Clifford, Rich Cohen, Jessica Contrera, Jonathan Coleman, Pam Colloff, Ruby Cramer, Bryan Curtis, Seyward Darby, Maureen Dowd, Charles Duhigg, Brett Michael Dykes, Geoff Edgers, Kate Fagan, Jodi Mailander Farrell, Hadley Freeman, Elaine Godfrey, Lea Goldman, Michael N. Graff, Megan Greenwell, Bill Grueskin, Justine Gubar, Maggie Haberman, Erika Hayasaki, Reyhan Harmanci, Virginia Heffernan, Matthew Hiltzik, Jena Janovy, Bomani Jones, Chris Jones, Peter Kafka, Jay Caspian Kang, Jordan Kisner, Paul Kix, Mina Kimes, Peter King, Steve Krakauer, Michael Kruse, Tom Lamont, Edmund Lee, Chris Lehmann, Will Leitch, Steven Levy, Jon Mackenzie, Glynnis MacNicol, Drew Magary, Erik Malinowski, Jonathan Martin, Betsy Fischer Martin, Jeff Maysh, Jack McCallum, Soraya Nadia McDonald, Susan McPherson, Ana Menendez, Kevin Merida, Katherine Miller, Heidi N. Moore, Kim Morgan, Diana Moskovitz, Eric Neel, Kevin Nguyen, Joe Nocera, Olivia Nuzzi, Ashley R. Parker, Dave Pell, Anne Helen Petersen, Elaina Plott, Joe Posnanski, Julia Preston, S.L. Price, Christine Pride, Nausicaa Renner, Jennifer Romolini, Julia Rubin, Albert Samaha, Bob Sassone, Bruce Schoenfeld, Michael Schur, Joe Sexton, Ramona Shelburne, Jacqui Shine, Alexandra Sifferlin, Rachel Sklar, Dan Shanoff, Harry Shearer, Ben Smith, Deborah Sontag, Elizabeth Spiers, Adam Sternbergh, Matt Sullivan, Wright Thompson, Pablo Torre, Ian Urbina, Kevin Van Valkenburg, Krithika Varagur, Nikki Waller, John A. Walsh, Charlie Warzel, Seth Wickersham, Karen Wickre, Brad Wolverton, Dan Zak and Dave Zirin

Contributor in memoriam: Lyra McKee 1990-2019


Publishing Partner

Ruth Ann Harnisch

In 2021, we were blessed to join forces with Ruth Ann Harnisch – an investor, donor activist, and film and media producer who gives boldly to accelerate equality. Her media career taught her the power of activists’ money and good storytelling to drive cultural change. Ruth Ann was one of Nashville’s female broadcast news pioneers, working at the CBS-TV News affiliate, WLAC-AM and the Nashville Banner.

Now, through The Harnisch Foundation and her personal account (whence cometh the SLR sponsorship money), she invests in leaders and creative communities working for a more equal and inclusive world. She has a heart for the underpaid journalist, as her first on-camera job paid so little she qualified for (what was then known as) food stamps. When she pointed this out to the GM, he gave her a raise that put her one dollar over the threshold for public assistance.

“When I earned my living as a journalist, I was a combo platter of poor and broke. Currently I am neither. Supporting a fair and free press is a philanthropic priority, supporting good content (whether or not it’s “fair”) is a personal passion. I’m glad to help pay journalists for their work. And I like that the SLR is a new clubhouse for journalism’s cool kids,” she told our Don Van Natta Jr.