Nick Jackson
@nbj914.bsky.social
Four-time EIC and NMA winner. Led Atlas Obscura, Pacific Standard, and SSIR. Alum: IMSA, Medill/Northwestern, The Atlantic, Built In, Slate, Outside, etc. Using this site as just a catalog of some stuff I've been reading. nbjackson.com
Why Silicon Valley’s Most Powerful People Are So Obsessed With Hobbits: “They wage war against a dangerous or moribund establishment and aspire to build a brave new world out of the ashes of the old.” www.nytimes.com/2025/05/23/b...
December 2, 2025 at 9:31 PM
Why Silicon Valley’s Most Powerful People Are So Obsessed With Hobbits: “They wage war against a dangerous or moribund establishment and aspire to build a brave new world out of the ashes of the old.” www.nytimes.com/2025/05/23/b...
In the Age of the Algorithm, Roots Music Is Rising: “Like crafting and sewing and other embodied competences also making a comeback, music handmade by flesh-and-blood humans on instruments made of wood and metal has acquired special added meaning.” www.nytimes.com/2025/06/03/m...
December 2, 2025 at 9:30 PM
In the Age of the Algorithm, Roots Music Is Rising: “Like crafting and sewing and other embodied competences also making a comeback, music handmade by flesh-and-blood humans on instruments made of wood and metal has acquired special added meaning.” www.nytimes.com/2025/06/03/m...
My Father Prosecuted History’s Crimes. Then He Died in One.: “He wasn’t targeted because of who he was. But I also felt that he was a symbol, martyred as an avatar of justice, somehow, by people representing the total moral opposite.” www.nytimes.com/2025/05/20/m...
December 1, 2025 at 8:48 PM
My Father Prosecuted History’s Crimes. Then He Died in One.: “He wasn’t targeted because of who he was. But I also felt that he was a symbol, martyred as an avatar of justice, somehow, by people representing the total moral opposite.” www.nytimes.com/2025/05/20/m...
Is It OK to Earn Rental Income From an ICE Holding Facility?: “It’s a way to turn your sense of passive complicity into a measure of active redress. You may not be able to change the trust’s lease, but you can choose what your share of the proceeds stands for.” www.nytimes.com/2025/06/06/m...
December 1, 2025 at 8:47 PM
Is It OK to Earn Rental Income From an ICE Holding Facility?: “It’s a way to turn your sense of passive complicity into a measure of active redress. You may not be able to change the trust’s lease, but you can choose what your share of the proceeds stands for.” www.nytimes.com/2025/06/06/m...
The Battling Memoirs of The New Yorker: “Well, unmistakably, the first rule of The New Yorker is: you do not write about The New Yorker. It’s like Fight Club, with Oxford commas instead of black eyes and cut lips. And the second rule is: nuts to the first rule.” www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
November 30, 2025 at 9:06 PM
The Battling Memoirs of The New Yorker: “Well, unmistakably, the first rule of The New Yorker is: you do not write about The New Yorker. It’s like Fight Club, with Oxford commas instead of black eyes and cut lips. And the second rule is: nuts to the first rule.” www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
Miley Cyrus Told Us to Ask Her Anything: “‘To me that was a lyric about not only mortality but just that every day isn’t promised to us, so worrying about the future that may never come is pointless....’” www.nytimes.com/2025/05/31/m...
November 30, 2025 at 9:05 PM
Miley Cyrus Told Us to Ask Her Anything: “‘To me that was a lyric about not only mortality but just that every day isn’t promised to us, so worrying about the future that may never come is pointless....’” www.nytimes.com/2025/05/31/m...
21st-Century Cinema in Review: ‘Brokeback Mountain’: “The Western has always been a genre about the distance between wilderness and civilization, focused on the people who find themselves caught perilously in between.” www.theringer.com/2025/05/30/m...
November 29, 2025 at 7:49 PM
21st-Century Cinema in Review: ‘Brokeback Mountain’: “The Western has always been a genre about the distance between wilderness and civilization, focused on the people who find themselves caught perilously in between.” www.theringer.com/2025/05/30/m...
Reality TV Has a New Recipe for Success: Trauma: “Fans accustomed to giddy live-action gossip and vodka-fueled mischief are now subjected to trauma plots that feel designed for rubbernecking.” www.nytimes.com/2025/06/04/m...
November 29, 2025 at 7:48 PM
Reality TV Has a New Recipe for Success: Trauma: “Fans accustomed to giddy live-action gossip and vodka-fueled mischief are now subjected to trauma plots that feel designed for rubbernecking.” www.nytimes.com/2025/06/04/m...
The Road Trips That Changed Their Lives: “I’d printed 56,000 postcards of spots I’d photographed in Amarillo, Texas — the county courthouse, the Army-Navy store where you’d get your Levi’s — and hadn’t sold any.” www.nytimes.com/2025/05/16/t...
November 28, 2025 at 5:14 PM
The Road Trips That Changed Their Lives: “I’d printed 56,000 postcards of spots I’d photographed in Amarillo, Texas — the county courthouse, the Army-Navy store where you’d get your Levi’s — and hadn’t sold any.” www.nytimes.com/2025/05/16/t...
The Made-for-TV Movie Never Died. It Just Evolved and Migrated.: “The mid-’80s might have marked the high point for the made-for-TV movie, but the form thrived in the years before and after The Day After reminded everyone how close we were to nuclear annihilation.” www.theringer.com/2025/05/29/t...
November 28, 2025 at 5:13 PM
The Made-for-TV Movie Never Died. It Just Evolved and Migrated.: “The mid-’80s might have marked the high point for the made-for-TV movie, but the form thrived in the years before and after The Day After reminded everyone how close we were to nuclear annihilation.” www.theringer.com/2025/05/29/t...
Why Everyone Wants to Get Into the Criterion Closet: “In a world where we’re constantly reminded that physical media is dead — that the future is just algorithms stomping our faces, forever — the fact that the ... Closet has gone viral suggests that all is not lost.” www.vulture.com/article/why-...
November 27, 2025 at 5:48 PM
Why Everyone Wants to Get Into the Criterion Closet: “In a world where we’re constantly reminded that physical media is dead — that the future is just algorithms stomping our faces, forever — the fact that the ... Closet has gone viral suggests that all is not lost.” www.vulture.com/article/why-...
The Rebellious Instrument That Gave Latin Music Its Swing: “If high culture tends to associate wisdom with nuance and restraint, then maybe the cowbell’s demand seems shrill, even shameful. Plenty of people underestimate the rigors of rhythm.” www.nytimes.com/2025/05/20/m...
November 27, 2025 at 5:43 PM
The Rebellious Instrument That Gave Latin Music Its Swing: “If high culture tends to associate wisdom with nuance and restraint, then maybe the cowbell’s demand seems shrill, even shameful. Plenty of people underestimate the rigors of rhythm.” www.nytimes.com/2025/05/20/m...
Middle Schoolers Welcome Tiny Eels After a 1,000-Mile Journey: “Some let the eels squirm from their hands into a bucket. Others weigh groups of them on a small digital scale and record their tally.” www.nytimes.com/2025/05/30/m...
November 26, 2025 at 7:59 PM
Middle Schoolers Welcome Tiny Eels After a 1,000-Mile Journey: “Some let the eels squirm from their hands into a bucket. Others weigh groups of them on a small digital scale and record their tally.” www.nytimes.com/2025/05/30/m...
The Movie Subscription Service That’s Basically a Cult: “Hugo Quintana, a 24-year-old policy worker in Chicago, views being an A-List member as a ‘side identity,’ and goes as often as he can.” www.wsj.com/lifestyle/am...
November 26, 2025 at 7:59 PM
The Movie Subscription Service That’s Basically a Cult: “Hugo Quintana, a 24-year-old policy worker in Chicago, views being an A-List member as a ‘side identity,’ and goes as often as he can.” www.wsj.com/lifestyle/am...
How to Hide a 350-Foot Megayacht: “The men who grew rich from the fire sale of state assets after the Soviet Union’s collapse saw in offshore havens a means of keeping their newfound wealth out of the reach of capricious authorities.” www.nytimes.com/2025/05/27/m...
November 25, 2025 at 6:58 PM
How to Hide a 350-Foot Megayacht: “The men who grew rich from the fire sale of state assets after the Soviet Union’s collapse saw in offshore havens a means of keeping their newfound wealth out of the reach of capricious authorities.” www.nytimes.com/2025/05/27/m...
Gateway Books: “For many of us, the initial encounter with the gateway books was a lonely one. This wasn’t just because nobody we knew seemed to be reading them, but also because loneliness was what motivated the search in the first place.” thepointmag.com/examined-lif...
November 25, 2025 at 6:57 PM
Gateway Books: “For many of us, the initial encounter with the gateway books was a lonely one. This wasn’t just because nobody we knew seemed to be reading them, but also because loneliness was what motivated the search in the first place.” thepointmag.com/examined-lif...
The Opinion That Ate the Paper: “I’m told even people in the department are at times confused about what makes something an ‘Opinion’ story or not and often find that the answer is arbitrary.” nymag.com/intelligence...
November 24, 2025 at 6:35 PM
The Opinion That Ate the Paper: “I’m told even people in the department are at times confused about what makes something an ‘Opinion’ story or not and often find that the answer is arbitrary.” nymag.com/intelligence...
Skin Cancer Made Me Nocturnal. It Was Illuminating.: “Dusk is fleeting. I could try to stretch it out a little longer, but for the most part, I had one choice: to hang on and enjoy the ride.” www.nytimes.com/2025/06/03/m...
November 24, 2025 at 6:34 PM
Skin Cancer Made Me Nocturnal. It Was Illuminating.: “Dusk is fleeting. I could try to stretch it out a little longer, but for the most part, I had one choice: to hang on and enjoy the ride.” www.nytimes.com/2025/06/03/m...
America’s Leading Alien Hunters Depend on AI to Speed Their Search: “The availability of such tools has coincided with a cultural shift, one fed by a cascade of U.S. Department of Defense disclosures about its own research into ufology.” www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...
November 23, 2025 at 7:33 PM
America’s Leading Alien Hunters Depend on AI to Speed Their Search: “The availability of such tools has coincided with a cultural shift, one fed by a cascade of U.S. Department of Defense disclosures about its own research into ufology.” www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...
This Easy Dinner Merges Histories (and Fish and Couscous): “Among all the accounts of silk merchants and military campaigns, I’m drawn to the ones of barley, wheat, and millet, traveling in saddlebags across mountains and deserts.” www.nytimes.com/2025/06/04/m...
November 23, 2025 at 7:32 PM
This Easy Dinner Merges Histories (and Fish and Couscous): “Among all the accounts of silk merchants and military campaigns, I’m drawn to the ones of barley, wheat, and millet, traveling in saddlebags across mountains and deserts.” www.nytimes.com/2025/06/04/m...
The Unparalleled Daily Miracle of Tap Water: “It is cheap and plentiful, and it connects you to the ecosystem around you — the shared resource pulling you into contact with all the other plant and animal life around.” www.nytimes.com/2025/05/27/m...
November 22, 2025 at 4:02 PM
The Unparalleled Daily Miracle of Tap Water: “It is cheap and plentiful, and it connects you to the ecosystem around you — the shared resource pulling you into contact with all the other plant and animal life around.” www.nytimes.com/2025/05/27/m...
Screen Names, BBM, and MP3s: The Oral History of Millennial Tech: “The internet used to come in the mail. On shiny, gorgeous discs, distributed by the fine people at America Online like street drugs — just a taste to whet the whistle.” www.theringer.com/2025/05/09/p...
November 22, 2025 at 3:57 PM
Screen Names, BBM, and MP3s: The Oral History of Millennial Tech: “The internet used to come in the mail. On shiny, gorgeous discs, distributed by the fine people at America Online like street drugs — just a taste to whet the whistle.” www.theringer.com/2025/05/09/p...
What Desi Arnaz Could Teach Hollywood Today: “He looked and sounded nothing like the preconceived notion that the entertainment business had of a successful star. So he changed the way Hollywood did business, and whom we can imagine as stars.” www.nytimes.com/2025/05/18/o...
November 22, 2025 at 2:24 AM
What Desi Arnaz Could Teach Hollywood Today: “He looked and sounded nothing like the preconceived notion that the entertainment business had of a successful star. So he changed the way Hollywood did business, and whom we can imagine as stars.” www.nytimes.com/2025/05/18/o...
‘In America, Every Generation Is Better Off Than Their Parents’: “You’ve never put money first. You’ve always believed — you were taught to believe! — that there are more important things. So why do so many of your thoughts revolve around money?” www.theringer.com/2025/05/09/n...
November 22, 2025 at 2:10 AM
‘In America, Every Generation Is Better Off Than Their Parents’: “You’ve never put money first. You’ve always believed — you were taught to believe! — that there are more important things. So why do so many of your thoughts revolve around money?” www.theringer.com/2025/05/09/n...
Rutger Bregman Wants to Save Elites From Their Wasted Lives: “Bregman, who is something of a professional optimist, is willing to admit that the arguments in his first two books ... land less persuasively now than when they were published.” www.nytimes.com/2025/05/17/m...
November 20, 2025 at 6:45 PM
Rutger Bregman Wants to Save Elites From Their Wasted Lives: “Bregman, who is something of a professional optimist, is willing to admit that the arguments in his first two books ... land less persuasively now than when they were published.” www.nytimes.com/2025/05/17/m...