The Art of Insight

Chapter 16A Journalism of Care

with Alyssa Fowers

Figure 16.1: Illustrations from “How fat are the bears of fat bear week?” by National Park Service /

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/10/04/how-fat-are-bears-fat-bear-week/ / last accessed under April 19, 2023

That which we ignore reveals more than what we give our attention to. It's in these things that we find cultural and colloquial hints of what is deemed important. Spots that we've left blank reveal our hidden social biases and indifferences.

—Mimi Ọnụọha

In February of 2023, Alyssa Fowers, a former graduate student of mine and a graphics reporter at The Washington Post, gave a talk to my University of Miami students. After presenting many of her graphics, she said something that I rushed to jot down:

Nothing you love is a waste of time. Nothing you learn from is a waste of time. The only waste of time is caring more about how you look than about what you do.

I believe that this quote captures Alyssa's character. Her best work comes from both the heart and the mind, combines the personal and the empirical, and emerges from love and care. Her stories, regardless of whether they are grim and serious or funny and lighthearted, always derive from an interest in the unexpected, the uncounted, the untold, and the unshown:

My main beat at the Post when I was hired was the economy, which has been depressing for ...