NBC New York journalist Maxfield crafts poignant and heartfelt follow-up stories from ten incredible news events over her twenty-year career. As a reporter with a tight deadline, she usually conducts brief interviews that are quickly edited and presented on the nightly news. “I’ve always liked the quote ‘news is the first rough draft of history,’” she writes. “I would add that the drafts I’ve written are not just rough; they’re incomplete.” Sometimes, she notes, the personal stories and perspectives of those involved in news stories get forgotten. On an assignment in 2021 about getting illegal guns off the street, Maxfield interviewed, for the second time, the grandmother of a fifteen-year-old who was murdered in a drive-by shooting in 2015. Maxfield had not heard from her since and was struck by the fact that, so often, reporters tell people’s stories but rarely learn what happened next. With curiosity, humility, and respect, Maxfield follows up with ten remarkable people, promising “Their story will be an integral part of our community’s shared history.” Maxfield revisits Paul Esposito, who lost both legs in the Staten Island Ferry crash in 2003, and now teaches about living independently with a disability. Maxfield also follows up with Yarelis Bonilla, who as a five-year-old with leukemia needed a bone marrow transplant, but her sister in El Salvador was refused a tourist visa. Other subjects include children who survived a Paramus, New Jersey, bus crash; a Hurricane Katrina survivor; and an Ivy Leaguer who was imprisoned on drug charges under harsh mandatory minimum sentencing.
Maxfield presents these harrowing stories with nail-biting intensity while affording her subjects the space and humanity to discuss their lives and how their ordeals affected them. She also offers welcome insight into the news gathering profession, the impact of social media, and the role of local news to report information pertinent to small communities. Readers of real-life stories of overcoming trauma will find these inspirational tales impossible to put down.
Takeaway: Maxfield’s poignant follow-up interviews with everyday news makers reveal humanity and optimism.
Great for fans of: Clarissa Ward’s On All Fronts, Craig Taylor’s New Yorkers: A City and Its People in Our Time.
Production grades
Cover: A-
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: A
Marketing copy: A
