Long Lead

Human and drug smuggling, serial killers... scandals with Border Patrol agents have existed for years following huge growth during the Bush administration which nearly doubled the size of the force without adequate vetting, training, oversight, or management.

On October 25, 2011, Iraq War veteran Scott Olsen was shot during Occupy Oakland. He survived two tours in Iraq, only to suffer a devastating head injury from police while exercising his right to protest.

Teresa Krug's narrative podcast THE FASTEST GIRL IN SOMALIA traces Samia Yusuf Omar’s brief but extraordinary life that took her from a track in China to the Mediterranean Sea bound for Europe. It's a story of migration and sports and gender.

TITLE WAVES — Long Lead's feature about a Hawaiian girls water polo team fighting for equity under Title IX — has been selected as a finalist for The Anthem Awards in TWO categories. Help us win by voting today: bit.ly/TitleWaves4C... bit.ly/TitleWaves4C...

Historian and LONG SHADOW host @vermontgmg.bsky.social shares that when you start looking at why America is so polarized, there are very explainable reasons about how our politics ended up as broken as they are right now — we just need to consider the actions that were taken in creating policy.

In a new, special episode of LONG SHADOW: 9/11'S LINGERING QUESTIONS, Graff traces how the United States' response to the events of September 11 led to the buildup of a massive federal police force. Listen now: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/l...

For Ara Rosenthal, who first studied journalism 20 years ago before pursuing a different career path, returning to the field and working in the "digital era" of journalism has offered her a different perspective of just how much the industry has changed.

Get ahead of the awards. Discover the independent journalism worth paying attention to — before it wins the industry's biggest honors. The journalists behind these Signal Award-winning podcasts shared insights with DEPTH PERCEPTION on the making of their shows before they received their accolades👇

When creating narrative podcast DRUG STORY Thomas Goetz (@thgoetz.bsky.social) "cooked up this idea to use a drug to tell these larger stories [about health]." He shared, "it was an epiphany that we’re not biologically predetermined to die of heart disease. That is the result of the world we built."

Get ahead of the awards. Discover the independent journalism worth paying attention to — before it wins the industry's biggest honors. The journalists behind these Signal Award-winning podcasts shared insights with DEPTH PERCEPTION on the making of their shows before they received their accolades👇

In the inventive podcast SHELL GAME — a “podcast about things that are not what they seem" — Evan Ratliff explores cutting-edge technology and trickery. Learn more about why the veteran journalist got into the industry: depthperception.longlead.com/p/shell-game...

Get ahead of the awards. Discover the independent journalism worth paying attention to — before it wins the industry's biggest honors. The journalists behind these Signal Award-winning podcasts shared insights with DEPTH PERCEPTION on the making of their shows before they received their accolades👇

ESPN podcast THE FASTEST GIRL IN SOMALIA was a story that journalist Teresa Krug knew she wanted to tell. The journalist had met athlete Samia Yusuf Omar two years before she died while attempting to cross the Mediterranean from Libya to Italy on a crowded boat with 70 other migrants.

While Omar was an athlete in Somalia, many athletes and sports journalists were killed, causing her to have to hide her identity at times to stay safe. Krug hopes that with telling Omar's story of migration, people will have a better understanding of things that are happening that aren't in the news

On October 20, 2004, the Boston Red Sox beat the New York Yankees in the American League Championship. Celebrations erupted across Boston, getting unruly into the night. Police began using less-lethal weapons to try to control the crowd. 21-year-old Victoria Snelgrove was shot in the face and died

An investigation commissioned by Boston Police Commissioner Kathleen O’Toole found that what killed Victoria Snelgrove was a dangerous combination of bad judgment, inadequate planning, incomplete policies, and, crucially, insufficient training.

On October 20, 2004, the Boston Red Sox beat the New York Yankees in the American League Championship. Celebrations erupted across Boston, getting unruly into the night. Police began using less-lethal weapons to try to control the crowd. 21-year-old Victoria Snelgrove was shot in the face and died

The special 25th anniversary episode of LONG SHADOW: 9/11’S LINGERING QUESTIONS "Never Again" has won three Signal Awards, winning gold for Best Documentary Podcast and Best News & Politics Podcast and gaining a silver award for Best History Podcast.

In "Never Again," host @vermontgmg.bsky.social leads listeners through the actions the U.S. took to protect the country at all costs following the 9/11 terrorist attacks — and how it's led to the terror currently on our streets with masked federal agents roaming the country’s streets.

In his newsletter DOOMSDAY SCENARIO, @vermontgmg.bsky.social writes about 3 incidents of gun violence in the last week. While we mostly hear when people actually die from guns — like the Bend, OR school shooting — what we don't see in the statistics are the gun violence plans that fell through

Ara Rosenthal pitched a story idea in a graduate journalism class at UC Berkeley, impressed a visiting Wired editor, and turned the story around within two weeks. For DEPTH PERCEPTION, she speaks about the behind the scenes of the piece being made from pitch to publish.

TITLE WAVES — Long Lead's feature about a Hawaiian girls water polo team fighting for equity under Title IX — has been selected as a finalist for The Anthem Awards in TWO categories. Help us win by voting today: bit.ly/TitleWaves4C... bit.ly/TitleWaves4C...

Ara Rosenthal studied journalism 20 years ago before changing career directions. She's now a graduate student at @berkeleyjournalism.bsky.social and when considering the industry now vs. 20 years ago, she shares, "We’re living in an important time that needs to be documented and amplified."

Russia’s war on Ukraine extends far beyond either country's borders. From sabotage and cyberattacks to disruptions of critical infrastructure, its “gray zone” tactics are testing NATO’s defenses — and the events aren't happening in isolation. border-line-war.longlead.com

While Russia would almost certainly lose a direct attack on NATO, its agenda of frightening and destabilizing allies continues. A New York Times opinion piece explores the broader stakes, while Long Lead and Magnum Photos' BORDER LINE WAR highlights how the conflict is reshaping Europe’s borders.

When you start looking at why America is so polarized, there are actually very explainable reasons about how our politics ended up as broken as they are right now, shares LONG SHADOW host Garrett Graff in his DEPTH PERCEPTION discussion about the history-chart topping podcast.

Long Lead has won Best Individual Editorial Feature four years in a row at the Webby Awards. Dive into the award-winning features today. longlead.com

@berkeleyjournalism.bsky.social graduate student Ara Rosenthal was taking a feature writing class when she had the opportunity to pitch Wired editor John Gravois later becoming her Wired piece about a community's response to the Epstein files. Rosenthal found the process "very collaborative."

Some of the things Rosenthal learned through the process from @johngravois.bsky.social were how to get sources to open up and why sometimes the most simple storytelling is doing it chronologically. www.wired.com/story/epstei...