Newspaper reporting is really storytelling. We call our articles ‘stories,’ and we try to tell them in a way that even people who don’t know all the background can understand them.

The lesson for the next U.S. president: Raise the taxes on fuel. A lot.

In some circles Stalin has in fact been making a comeback. His portrait hangs above the dashboard of trucks, a symbol of blue- collar nostalgia for a tough leader.

There are many roads to journalism. My feeling is that your best bet in college is to study the subjects you will want to write about, whether politics, the environment or the law.

I guess what I'm really saying is something obvious - that there's a unique pride in watching a home team from rival turf, especially when we're not supposed to be any good.

Every time some spoiled European soccer millionaire complains about the blaring vuvuzelas, I want them to blare louder.

Definitely read a quality daily paper regularly, and use the Internet to check out the press around the world as often as you can.

Writing for adults and writing for young people is really not that different. As a reporter, I have always tried to write as clearly and simply as possible. I like clean, unadorned writing. So writing for a younger audience was largely an exercise in making my prose even more clear and direct, and in avoiding complicated digressions.

Newspaper reporting is really storytelling. We call our articles 'stories,' and we try to tell them in a way that even people who don't know all the background can understand them.

Like many a Yank before me, I have tried to explain to European friends that Americans actually know soccer quite well, that many of us played it in school and college, but that, well, we just don't find it quite as exciting as, say, what we call football.