The Biggest Secret
The author relates his experience as a New York Times investigative reporter covering the War on Terror, and outlines the pressure that journalists come under from governments to censor stories and reveal sources.
I Played Fortnite and Figured Out the Universe
The author of this piece played one of the world’s most popular and talked about video games (cf Premier League footballers mimicking its virtual dances in their real-world celebrations) and thinks he has discovered something about the way humans work.
The Lost Children of ‘Runaway Train’
The 1991 music video for the smash hit by Soul Asylum featured images of runaway children. This thoughtful piece follows up on their stories a quarter of a century later.
Inside the Two Years that Shook Facebook – and the World
A piece examining the series of challenges Facebook has faced as it struggles to manage the intended and unintended consequences of its huge scale and the reach it has into many parts of its users’ lives.
How Britain let Russia hide its dirty money
A piece looking at the influx of Russian money into the UK.
Canary in the Code Mine
A look at a project to teach coding to former miners in Appalachian coal country. The project was born in part out of a dismissive comment made by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and its popularity has confounded stereotypes.
The Patriarchy Hates the Moon
The story of man’s uneasy relationship with the moon, culminating in planned nuclear attacks on it by both Soviet and American governments during the Cold War. http://www.bit.ly/atlantic-moon
The Weekly Package
A look at the way in which many Cubans get access to the international culture that has historically been denied to them – a weekly delivery of films, TV and other content on a USB stick.
Al Franken, That Photo, and Trusting the Women
This eloquent piece looks at the sexual harassment allegations against Senator Al Franken and uses them as a springboard to examine humanity’s long history of identifying trustworthiness as a male trait and duplicity as its female counterpart – via Aristotle, Galen, Jezebel, Cassandra, Hamlet and others.
The New Passport-Poor
Is a passport a tool of individual freedom or state restriction and regulation? This piece looks to answer that question and examines the history of identity documentation.