Longreads Best of 2018: Investigative Reporting

Lindsay GellmanSenior Researcher for investigative journalist Ronan Farrow

Lindsay Gellman调查记者 Ronan Farrow 的高级研究员

## Why America’s Black Mothers and Babies Are in a Life-or-Death Crisis (Linda Villarosa, The New York Times)

## 为什么美国的黑人母亲和婴儿陷入生死危机（Linda Villarosa，纽约时报）

Villarosa’s unflinching examination of giving birth while black in America has stayed with me.

维拉罗萨对美国黑人生育问题的坚定不移的审视一直困扰着我。

We lose black newborns and black mothers at astonishing rates; in the U.S., black infants are more than twice as likely to die as white infants, Villarosa writes, and black women are three to four times as likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than their white counterparts.

我们以惊人的速度失去黑人新生儿和黑人母亲；维拉罗萨写道，在美国，黑人婴儿死亡的可能性是白人婴儿的两倍多，黑人女性死于妊娠相关原因的可能性是白人女性的三到四倍。

Why?

为什么？

The piece lays out evidence for a theory that black women bear the trauma of systemic racism in their very physiology — that years of exposure to the stress of discrimination wreaks havoc on a body, and might contribute to pregnancy complications.

这篇文章为一种理论提供了证据，即黑人女性在生理上承受着系统性种族主义的创伤——长年暴露在歧视压力下会对身体造成严重破坏，并可能导致妊娠并发症。

Just as lethal, Villarosa’s reporting demonstrates, is the frequency and callousness with which medical staff routinely — and disproportionately — dismiss the complaints of black pregnant women and ignore warning signs.

维拉罗萨的报告表明，同样致命的是医务人员经常（而且不成比例地）频繁且冷酷地忽视黑人孕妇的投诉并忽视警告信号。

## The ISIS Files (Rukmini Callimachi, The New York Times)

## ISIS 档案（Rukmini Callimachi，纽约时报）

Callimachi is a reporter’s reporter; she’s all about the documents.

卡里马奇是记者中的记者；她只关心文件。

During five trips to Mosul spanning more than a year, she scoured abandoned buildings that had recently housed the workspaces, training grounds, courts, and living quarters of ISIS militants, stuffing tattered papers and folders the group had left behind into trash bags.

在一年多的时间里，她五次前往摩苏尔，搜查了最近被用作“伊斯兰国”武装分子工作空间、训练场、法庭和生活区的废弃建筑，并将该组织留下的破烂文件和文件夹塞进垃圾袋。

Callimachi and her team ultimately carted off more than 15,000 pages of documents.

Callimachi 和她的团队最终运走了超过 15,000 页的文件。

Through the lens of these records, Callimachi describes a regimented governing body focused on collecting taxes, issuing birth and marriage certificates, and meting out punishments.

通过这些记录的镜头，卡里马奇描述了一个严格的管理机构，专注于征税、颁发出生证和结婚证以及实施惩罚。

ISIS, she writes, “even ran its own D.M.V.” There are practical applications for such insights, the piece suggests.

她写道，“伊斯兰国”“甚至拥有自己的车管所”。这篇文章表明，这种见解有实际应用。

Our prior misconceptions about extremist groups like ISIS, Callimachi writes, have led to tactical failures in U.S.-led efforts to defeat them, such as a focus on destroying petroleum reserves when the group relied more heavily on agriculture for revenue.

卡里马奇写道，我们之前对“伊斯兰国”等极端组织的误解导致了美国领导的击败他们的努力在战术上失败，例如当该组织更多地依赖农业获取收入时，我们就集中精力摧毁石油储备。

All this from a haul of jettisoned papers.

所有这些都来自一堆废弃的文件。

Rahima NasaReporting fellow for ProPublica’s Documenting Hate project

Rahima Nasa ProPublica 记录仇恨项目的报告研究员

## How Anna Delvey Tricked New York’s Party People (Jessica Pressler, The Cut)

## 安娜·德尔维如何欺骗纽约的派对人士（杰西卡·普莱斯勒，The Cut）

I will always associate 2018 as the year of the scammer.

我永远将2018年视为骗子年。

There’s been several great pieces of journalism published this year chronicling the exploits of the grifter.

今年出版了几篇精彩的新闻文章，记录了骗子的行径。

My favorite was Jessica Pressler’s exposé on The Cut that detailed the life of Anna Delvey, a woman who manages to furrow her way into New York’s elite social scene and then scam them into thinking she is a rich heirress.

我最喜欢的是杰西卡·普莱斯勒 (Jessica Pressler) 在 The Cut 上的曝光，其中详细介绍了安娜·德尔维 (Anna Delvey) 的生活，这位女性成功地跻身纽约精英社交圈，然后欺骗他们，让他们误以为自己是一位富有的女继承人。

It can’t be easy diving into the background of a chronic liar but Jessica Pressler gets receipts from everyone from Anna’s father to Martin Shkreli, and weaves a fantastic story about what you can get away with if you can act rich enough.

深入了解一个长期说谎的人的背景并不容易，但杰西卡·普莱斯勒从安娜的父亲到马丁·施克雷利等所有人那里得到了收据，并编织了一个精彩的故事，讲述如果你表现得足够富有，你可以逃脱惩罚。

Nicholas JacksonEditor-in-chief, Pacific Standard

尼古拉斯·杰克逊太平洋标准报主编

## ‘If Bobbie Talks, I’m Finished’: How Les Moonves Tried to Silence an Accuser (James B.

## “如果鲍比说话，我就完了”：莱斯·穆维斯如何试图让原告保持沉默 (James B.

Stewart, Rachel Abrams, and Ellen Gabler, The New York Times)

斯图尔特、雷切尔·艾布拉姆斯和艾伦·加布勒，《纽约时报》）

## The Peacock Patriarchy (David Usborne, Esquire)

## 孔雀父权制（大卫·乌斯伯恩，《时尚先生》）

Every single one of last year’s best-of lists — or every single one worth reading anyway — celebrated the feat of reporting that was Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey’s New York Times piece exposing Harvey Weinstein as a serial sexual predator, and the extreme efforts he and the enablers around him took to silence those he harmed.

去年的每一个最佳榜单——或者说每一个值得一读的榜单——都在庆祝乔迪·坎特和梅根·图伊在《纽约时报》上发表的文章，揭露哈维·韦恩斯坦是一个连环性掠夺者，并赞扬他和他周围的支持者为让他伤害的人闭嘴而付出的巨大努力。

It’s hard to believe that was only a year ago.

很难相信这只是一年前的事。

With focused, relentless reporting efforts, Kantor and Twohey took down one of the most powerful figures in Hollywood and, in the process, kick-started a movement that’s unlike anything previously seen.

通过集中、不懈的报道努力，坎特和图伊打倒了好莱坞最有权势的人物之一，并在此过程中启动了一场前所未有的运动。

This year, more reporters have turned their attention to the #MeToo movement and I’d argue that some of the best investigative work being done now is still building on what Kantor and Twohey — and Ronan Farrow at The New Yorker — started.

今年，更多记者将注意力转向#MeToo运动，我认为现在正在进行的一些最好的调查工作仍然建立在坎特和图伊以及《纽约客》的罗南·法罗开始的基础上。

After winning the Pulitzer Prize in 2017 for her work on sexual harassment, the Times’ Ellen Gabler hasn’t let up.

2017 年，《泰晤士报》的艾伦·加布勒 (Ellen Gabler) 因其在性骚扰方面的工作而获得普利策奖，但她并没有松懈。

This year, she covered Eric Schneiderman’s resignation as New York attorney general following assault claims and partnered with Rachel Abrams and James B.

今年，她报道了埃里克·施奈德曼 (Eric Schneiderman) 因袭击指控而辞去纽约总检察长职务，并与雷切尔·艾布拉姆斯 (Rachel Abrams) 和詹姆斯·B·施奈德 (James B.

Stewart for a stunning piece that’ll likely cost former CBS chief Les Moonves his $120 million severance package: “‘If Bobbie Talks, I’m Finished’: How Les Moonves Tried to Silence an Accuser.” Especially for a newspaper story, the writing here is tight and lively, and you’ll speed quickly through all 5,000 words of this.

斯图尔特发表了一篇令人震惊的文章，可能会让前哥伦比亚广播公司首席执行官莱斯·穆恩维斯 (Les Moonves) 损失 1.2 亿美元的遣散费：“‘如果鲍比说话，我就完了’：莱斯·穆恩维斯如何试图让指控者保持沉默。”尤其是报纸报道，文笔紧凑、生动，5000字你很快就能读完。

Use the time you’ve saved to read it twice, because, since the Times doesn’t call attention to it, you may not notice the first time just how many critical sources have gone on the record here, and how many of the smallest details have been unearthed in what I imagine was many, many months of reporting.

利用你节省下来的时间读两遍，因为《泰晤士报》没有引起人们的注意，你第一次读时可能不会注意到这里记录了多少关键消息来源，以及在我想象的许多个月的报道中发现了多少最小的细节。

Leah SottileJournalist and host of the Bundyville podcast.

Leah Sottile 记者兼邦迪维尔播客主持人。

## Targeted: A Family and the Quest to Stop the Next School Shooter (Bethany Barnes, The Oregonian)

## 有针对性：一个家庭和阻止下一个校园枪击案凶手的任务（贝瑟尼·巴恩斯，《俄勒冈人》）

In Bethany Barnes’ brilliant investigation for The Oregonian, she speaks to fears of people across the country: with school shootings happening at a constant pace, how do you figure out which kid will be the next mass shooter?

在贝瑟尼·巴恩斯 (Bethany Barnes) 为《俄勒冈人报》所做的精彩调查中，她谈到了全国人民的恐惧：学校枪击事件不断发生，你如何判断哪个孩子将成为下一个大规模枪击案凶手？

Barnes embeds with the family of “Sanders,” a Portland teenager who school officials have singled out, and watches as the boy and his parents unravel under more and more scrutiny.

巴恩斯融入了波特兰少年“桑德斯”的家庭，学校官员特别挑选了他，并看着这个男孩和他的父母在越来越多的审视下分崩离析。

Any other reporter might not have been able to tackle the topic so deftly, but Barnes — as always — balances humanity with investigative detail.

任何其他记者可能无法如此巧妙地处理这个话题，但巴恩斯一如既往地平衡了人性与调查细节。

## The Delay (Rachel Monroe, Esquire)

## 延迟（雷切尔·梦露，《时尚先生》）

The investigative pieces that stuck with me this year had a theme: people whose lives were caught up in systems meant to prevent harm, but that ended up causing harm.

今年让我印象深刻的调查作品有一个主题：人们的生活陷入了旨在防止伤害的系统中，但最终却造成了伤害。

The first of those was written by one of my favorite long-form journalists, Rachel Monroe, about the disappearance of 12-year-old Ashlynn Mike on the Navajo Reservation in New Mexico.

第一篇是我最喜欢的长篇记者 Rachel Monroe 写的，内容是关于 12 岁的 Ashlynn Mike 在新墨西哥州纳瓦霍保留地失踪的故事。

It’s a complex story that shows how well-intentioned systems meant to help children aren’t applied equally to Native communities.

这是一个复杂的故事，展示了旨在帮助儿童的善意系统如何平等地应用于原住民社区。

In this case, the incident of one child going missing led to a bureaucratic game of telephone between the Navajo Nation Police, the FBI, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the New Mexico State Police.

在这起案件中，一名儿童失踪事件引发了纳瓦霍族警察、联邦调查局、国家失踪和受虐儿童中心以及新墨西哥州警察之间的官僚电话游戏。

This isn’t only a story about a girl who fell through the cracks, it’s a story that waves a flag, warning that it will happen again if something doesn’t change.

这不仅是一个关于一个女孩陷入困境的故事，也是一个挥舞旗帜的故事，警告如果事情不改变，这种情况还会再次发生。

Ian FrischInvestigative journalist and author of Magic Is Dead

伊恩·弗里施（Ian Frisch）调查记者、《魔法已死》作者

## Blood Will Tell (Pamela Colloff, ProPublica and The New York Times Magazine)

## 血将诉说（Pamela Colloff、ProPublica 和纽约时报杂志）

The best investigative reporting doesn’t feel like reporting — it feels like storytelling.

最好的调查报道不像是报道，而是像是在讲故事。

When we meet Joe Bryan and his murdered wife Mickey in Pamela Colloff’s “Blood Will Tell” (Joe — ding ding ding!

当我们在帕梅拉·科洛夫的《血泪》中见到乔·布莱恩和他被谋杀的妻子米奇时（乔——叮叮叮！

— is charged with the killing), they don’t feel like examples of an injustice, but rather the injustice itself, a living and breathing thing, with all the sordid facts woven into a captivating narrative.

——被指控杀人），他们并不觉得自己是不公正的例子，而是不公正本身，是一个活生生的东西，所有肮脏的事实都交织成一个迷人的叙述。

Colloff is best known not only for her reporting grit, but also her ability to craft a compelling tale out of dry police reports, crime scene photographs, newspaper clippings, and the like.

科洛夫最出名的不仅是她的报道勇气，还有她利用干巴巴的警察报告、犯罪现场照片、剪报等编造出引人入胜的故事的能力。

It takes a truly gifted writer to transform thousands of pages of paper into a real story.

真正有天赋的作家才能将数千页纸变成一个真实的故事。

And that’s what she has done here with “Blood Will Tell.” But you’ll never get lost in the lyrical prose, of which the piece abounds, because Colloff, who spent over a year reporting the story, doesn’t let the bigger picture escape her: That bloodstain pattern analysis, a forensic “science” which has lent itself much use to prosecutors not only in this Texas-based case but also in dozens of other cases around the country, is unreliable at best and egregiously incompetent at worse.

这就是她在《Blood Will Tell》中所做的事情。但你永远不会迷失在这篇文章中随处可见的抒情散文中，因为科洛夫花了一年多的时间报道这个故事，她并没有让大局溜走：血迹模式分析，一种法医“科学”，不仅在德克萨斯州的这起案件中，而且在全国各地的其他数十起案件中为检察官提供了很大的用处，往好了说是不可靠，往坏了说是极其无能。

I left this story convinced that the prosecutors had committed a grave injustice — that it wasn’t Joe Bryan who had blood on his hands, but them.

看完这个故事，我确信检察官犯下了严重的不公正——手上沾满鲜血的不是乔·布莱恩，而是他们。

## Lost in the Storm (Sheri Fink, The New York Times Magazine)

## 迷失在风暴中（Sheri Fink，纽约时报杂志）

I am going to use this opportunity, which Longreads has graciously (and somewhat surprisingly) granted me, to share another gut-punching narrative investigation.

我将利用 Longreads 慷慨地（有点令人惊讶地）给予我的这个机会，分享另一项令人心碎的叙事调查。

Sheri Fink’s “Lost in the Storm” — also set in Texas, also involving a husband and his deceased wife — showcases not only the highest level of reporting acuity, but an inherent understanding that investigative reporting doesn’t have to be dry and clinical; it can read like a thriller, stab your heart like a love story, and twist the knife like a tragedy.

谢里·芬克的《迷失在风暴中》——同样以德克萨斯州为背景，也涉及一对丈夫和他已故的妻子——不仅展示了最高水平的报道敏锐度，而且展示了一种固有的理解，即调查报道不必是枯燥和临床的；而是一种与生俱来的理解。它读起来可以像惊悚片，可以像爱情故事一样刺痛你的心，也可以像悲剧一样扭转你的刀。

And with Fink’s riveting multimedia account of Hurricane Harvey, that’s exactly what we get.

通过芬克对飓风哈维的引人入胜的多媒体描述，这正是我们所得到的。

But it’s not really about the storm at all; rather, it’s about how the institutions tasked with protecting residents during a natural disaster failed at the highest level.

但这根本与风暴无关。相反，它是关于在自然灾害期间负责保护居民的机构如何在最高层失败的。

For a story, on its face, about how calling 911 during a hurricane can be unreliable, I sure came away feeling that I had, instead, read a tale about love and loss, desperation and determination — about how one man’s adoration for his wife wasn’t enough to save her life during Houston’s historic flood.

从表面上看，关于在飓风期间拨打 911 如何不可靠的故事，我确实感觉自己读到了一个关于爱与失落、绝望与决心的故事——关于一个男人对妻子的爱不足以在休斯敦历史性洪水期间挽救她的生命。

(A side note: The Daily podcast did a tremendous job translating Fink’s story into a nail-biting audio experience; I highly recommend reading the story and then listening to the episode.)

（旁注：《每日播客》在将芬克的故事转化为令人紧张的音频体验方面做得非常出色；我强烈建议阅读这个故事，然后再听这一集。）

Mike DangEditor-in-chief, Longreads

Mike DangLongreads 主编

## Dirty Gold, Clean Cash (The Miami Herald I-Team)

## 肮脏的黄金，干净的现金（迈阿密先驱报 I-Team）

This Miami Herald investigation looking at how billions of dollars worth of gold from Latin American narco-traffickers illegally made it into South Florida was an impressive feat of storytelling that required a large team of reporters, editors, and visual journalists collaborating together.

《迈阿密先驱报》对拉丁美洲毒贩价值数十亿美元的黄金如何非法进入南佛罗里达州的调查是一项令人印象深刻的故事讲述壮举，需要一大批记者、编辑和视觉记者的共同合作。

Very few news organizations are able to dedicate significant amounts of resources to these kinds of projects anymore, and this one was well worth it, incorporating animation, interactive graphics, and video into a compelling narrative explaining how drug money was laundered into clean cash using circuitous routes.

很少有新闻机构能够再为此类项目投入大量资源，而这个项目非常值得，它将动画、交互式图形和视频融入到引人入胜的叙述中，解释了毒品资金如何通过迂回的途径洗钱成干净的现金。

The ill-gotten gold is used to make our jewelry, coins, and smartphones while on another continent, workers burn toxic chemicals to mine the gold, poisoning themselves and a rainforest locals use to farm fish.

不义之财的黄金被用来制造我们的珠宝、硬币和智能手机，而在另一个大陆，工人们燃烧有毒化学品来开采黄金，毒害了自己，也毒害了当地人用来养鱼的雨林。

## Do Men Enter Bathtubs on Hands and Knees?

## 男性是否用手和膝盖进入浴缸？

An Investigation (Kelly Conaboy, The Cut)

一项调查（Kelly Conaboy、The Cut）

I want to completely change course for a moment and highlight a very different kind of investigative story: It’s a piece of humor writing based on a very real message board post left on BabyCenter, a resource site for parents.

我想暂时彻底改变方向，强调一个非常不同的调查故事：这是一篇幽默的文章，基于 BabyCenter（一个家长资源网站）上留下的非常真实的留言板帖子。

I don’t want to give too much away by explaining how this message board post is investigated, but I do want to say that the writer, Kelly Conaboy, consistently writes pieces full of heart and humor that are a welcome escape from a crushing news cycle that usually involves our president and his tweets.

我不想通过解释这篇留言板帖子是如何被调查的来透露太多，但我确实想说，作者凯利·科纳博伊（Kelly Conaboy）始终如一地写出充满真诚和幽默的文章，这些文章是人们从通常涉及我们的总统和他的推文的令人震惊的新闻周期中逃脱的好方法。

I thank her for that, and for writing this hilarious story.

我为此感谢她，也感谢她写了这个搞笑的故事。

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