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
This Reviled Pest Is the Unsung Hero of Every Major City in the World: “Although pigeons can be as fetching as parrots and nearly as widespread as songbirds, they generally receive far less respect and admiration from birders and scientists.” www.nytimes.com/2025/06/24/m...
December 8, 2025 at 10:25 PM
This Reviled Pest Is the Unsung Hero of Every Major City in the World: “Although pigeons can be as fetching as parrots and nearly as widespread as songbirds, they generally receive far less respect and admiration from birders and scientists.” www.nytimes.com/2025/06/24/m...
Copaganda and Me: “We watched so much TV about law enforcement that, in the 1980s, I thought policing mostly involved pumping the gas and darting through busy intersections while suspenseful music played in the background.” www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv...
December 8, 2025 at 10:24 PM
Copaganda and Me: “We watched so much TV about law enforcement that, in the 1980s, I thought policing mostly involved pumping the gas and darting through busy intersections while suspenseful music played in the background.” www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv...
Misty Copeland Changed Ballet. Now She’s Ready to Move On.: “‘I’ve never felt like I’ve gotten to this place and given this opportunity because I am the best Black dancer to ever exist. I was the first at American Ballet Theater to be given an opportunity.’” www.nytimes.com/2025/06/07/m...
December 7, 2025 at 8:41 PM
Misty Copeland Changed Ballet. Now She’s Ready to Move On.: “‘I’ve never felt like I’ve gotten to this place and given this opportunity because I am the best Black dancer to ever exist. I was the first at American Ballet Theater to be given an opportunity.’” www.nytimes.com/2025/06/07/m...
Can Watching Movies Rewire Your Brain?: “The study is a test of what psychologists call ‘narrative transportation,’ the idea that when people lose themselves in a story, their attitudes change.” www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie...
December 7, 2025 at 8:41 PM
Can Watching Movies Rewire Your Brain?: “The study is a test of what psychologists call ‘narrative transportation,’ the idea that when people lose themselves in a story, their attitudes change.” www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie...
From Antarctica With Love: “Pennell left a trove of letters and diaries behind, but they sat largely unconsulted for a century. The romance hidden inside them was a gift waiting for the right moment to be discovered.” magazine.atavist.com/from-antarct...
December 7, 2025 at 3:06 AM
From Antarctica With Love: “Pennell left a trove of letters and diaries behind, but they sat largely unconsulted for a century. The romance hidden inside them was a gift waiting for the right moment to be discovered.” magazine.atavist.com/from-antarct...
The Strange Rise of the Before-and-After Tragedy Meme: “We now depend so much on technology that it has made our favorite devices and platforms, and the traces we leave on them, an unavoidable part of how we experience death.” www.nytimes.com/2025/06/11/m...
December 7, 2025 at 3:05 AM
The Strange Rise of the Before-and-After Tragedy Meme: “We now depend so much on technology that it has made our favorite devices and platforms, and the traces we leave on them, an unavoidable part of how we experience death.” www.nytimes.com/2025/06/11/m...
Do Patients Without a Terminal Illness Have the Right to Die?: “‘If you want to allow people to end their lives when they want to, then put suicide kits in hardware stores, right?’ Li told me. It was not ‘assistance in dying’ if the patient was not actually dying.” www.nytimes.com/2025/06/01/m...
December 5, 2025 at 8:41 PM
Do Patients Without a Terminal Illness Have the Right to Die?: “‘If you want to allow people to end their lives when they want to, then put suicide kits in hardware stores, right?’ Li told me. It was not ‘assistance in dying’ if the patient was not actually dying.” www.nytimes.com/2025/06/01/m...
The Spaghetti ‘Pretty Much Every Kid Loves’: “The key to a great spaghetti Napolitan, a dish that’s hard to get right, is to think of it as a yaki ('fried') noodle more than an Italian-style pasta.” www.nytimes.com/2025/06/11/m...
December 5, 2025 at 8:40 PM
The Spaghetti ‘Pretty Much Every Kid Loves’: “The key to a great spaghetti Napolitan, a dish that’s hard to get right, is to think of it as a yaki ('fried') noodle more than an Italian-style pasta.” www.nytimes.com/2025/06/11/m...
The Ethical Minefield of Testing Infants for Incurable Diseases: “Isn’t this going to draw out worrisome prognoses in children who may never manifest major developmental delays?” www.nytimes.com/2025/06/05/h...
December 5, 2025 at 2:13 AM
The Ethical Minefield of Testing Infants for Incurable Diseases: “Isn’t this going to draw out worrisome prognoses in children who may never manifest major developmental delays?” www.nytimes.com/2025/06/05/h...
Too Much Zucchini? This Salad Can Save the Day.: “This quick salad — not really a pickle at all — is typically made with cucumber, a few slices of white onion, salt, pepper, lemon juice, apple cider or white vinegar, and a pinch of sugar.” www.nytimes.com/2025/06/25/m...
December 5, 2025 at 2:12 AM
Too Much Zucchini? This Salad Can Save the Day.: “This quick salad — not really a pickle at all — is typically made with cucumber, a few slices of white onion, salt, pepper, lemon juice, apple cider or white vinegar, and a pinch of sugar.” www.nytimes.com/2025/06/25/m...
Twain Dreams: “Why has it so often seemed necessary to claim Twain in this fashion? Presumably the answer involves some variant of whatever instinct prompted Everett to subvert (and thereby affirm the power of) the very book that gave rise to this glorification.” harpers.org/archive/2025...
December 4, 2025 at 2:50 AM
Twain Dreams: “Why has it so often seemed necessary to claim Twain in this fashion? Presumably the answer involves some variant of whatever instinct prompted Everett to subvert (and thereby affirm the power of) the very book that gave rise to this glorification.” harpers.org/archive/2025...
I Had an Affair With a Politician Who Denies Being Gay. Do I Keep His Secret?: “The result could be more intrusive, more destructive, and more lasting than you anticipate.... You can send a story out into the world, but you can’t call it home.” www.nytimes.com/2025/06/11/m...
December 4, 2025 at 2:50 AM
I Had an Affair With a Politician Who Denies Being Gay. Do I Keep His Secret?: “The result could be more intrusive, more destructive, and more lasting than you anticipate.... You can send a story out into the world, but you can’t call it home.” www.nytimes.com/2025/06/11/m...
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...