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 25 years, Don has worked as an investigative reporter, including his current position as senior writer for ESPN and a contributor to ESPN’s “Outside the Lines.”He is the host and co-executive producer of “Backstory,” a new docuseries for ABC, ESPN and ESPN+. Don has been the member of three Pulitzer Prize-winning reporting teams and is also a New York Times bestselling author. 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. He lives in Miami with his wife, the award-winning journalist Lizette Alvarez, and their two daughters.
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.
Publishing Partner
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.
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 Fiction Editor: Wadzanai Mhute
Sunday Cartoonists: Gus D’Angelo, Jake Goldwasser
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, Emma Peaslee, Veronica Dickson La Rotta
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, Lea Goldman, Michael N. Graff, Megan Greenwell, Bill Grueskin, Justine Gubar, Maggie Haberman, Reyhan Harmanci, Virginia Heffernan, Matthew Hiltzik, Jena Janovy, Bomani Jones, Chris Jones, Peter Kafka, 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, Anne Helen Petersen, Elaina Plott, Joe Posnanski, S.L. Price, 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, 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, Dan Zak and Dave Zirin
Contributor in memoriam: Lyra McKee 1990-2019
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