worldcrunch

3 GREAT STORIES: Starring some old favorites

Every week, I shine the spotlight on some of the best storytelling in the business and offer my comments. “3 Great Stories of the Week” will post every Monday at 8 AM.

Having written this weekly column for eight months now, I can safely say I have developed a few favorites.

These are the web sites, podcasts, newspapers, TV stations, writers, broadcasters, reporters, and storytellers that I visit for great content — and usually provide it.

This week, all three of my “3 Great Stories” happen to be penned by repeat offenders.

Inside Israel’s quest for cyberwar supremacy (11/6/13, Worldcrunch.com): I have written about Worldcrunch before, and in this case, I found a fascinating article on the go-to web site for news translation and curation.

The piece comes from Le Nouvel Observateur, France’s most-read weekly magazine, and is translated from the original text of its writer, Hadrien Gosset-Bernheim. It gets behind the walls of the Israeli Defense Force’s cyber-espionage team … or, at least, it tries to.

Gosset-Bernheim does not receive a whole lot of specifics as to how the cyber-espionage team works, but he does shed light into its importance for the IDF. He provides a well-rounded look into a subject that might prove surprising and enlightening to American readers; that would seem to be Worldcrunch’s goal in translating such an article for an English-speaking audience.

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3 GREAT STORIES: Starring Mike Bloomberg, SNL, and Finland

Every week, I shine the spotlight on some of the best storytelling in the business and offer my comments. “3 Great Stories of the Week” will post every Monday at 8 AM.

Some weeks, I have a hard time finding three great stories to profile in this segment.

Not this week.

Perhaps I just found myself reading a lot more, but I continually found absorbing work on the print side. Beyond that, I also found occasions where traditional media enhanced their content for an online audience.

In a week stacked with memorable content, here were the three pieces that stood out to me:

After Bloomberg (8/20/13, The New Yorker): He is routinely mocked for being bland and boring, but New York City mayor Mike Bloomberg is sneakily candid. He regularly weighs in on national topics and critiques the President, among other leaders, and yet he does not get the notoriety for outspokenness that a Chris Christie might receive.

In his final year of office, one would expect, his candidness will lead to numerous in-depth retrospectives — hopefully as memorable as this one.

Ken Auletta of the New Yorker produces this 8,000-word gem about Bloomberg, and it is special because it blends the mayor’s own words with the appropriate context and commentary. Auletta writes with an obvious point of view, but he generally uses it to color Bloomberg’s words, not overpower them. This paragraph is a perfect example:

I asked Bloomberg if he could imagine joining the President’s Cabinet. In theory, he said, “it would be fascinating to be Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, jobs like that. Secretary of the Treasury, you want someone who’s a real economist”—and someone “who is maybe less opinionated.” Bloomberg thinks of himself as a team player, as long as it’s his team.

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