How we work.

Workshops

Assignment workshops focus on projects that are already in the early stages of development.  Those of us who serve as Assignment mentors and instructors—a diverse group of  preeminent writers, reporters, editors, producers, and educators—share critical tools, techniques, and processes, and work with our fellows to shape both their reporting and the storytelling that follows. And we make ourselves available to them through the journey to publication and beyond.

Beyond Workshops

The way we see it, the workshops are just the start: Our aim is to build long-standing creative and professional relationships and establish and a lasting community that Assignment alumni can rely on for mentorship and support in their continuing efforts to publish work that brings the moral force of outstanding reporting and writing to bear on ignorance and abuses of power, wherever they may exist. 

Assignment aims to help our fellows develop expertise in a wide range of areas, including:

Finding the big idea, and the real story

Proving—or disproving—those ideas through the intensive, ethical gathering of facts

The use of advanced technology, data reporting, open records laws, and FOIA requests

Advanced interviewing techniques

The practice of immersion journalism

The architecture, rhythm, and pacing essential to compelling storytelling

Essential narrative techniques, scene setting, and character development with an emphasis on artful, nuanced writing that engages a wide audience and has a tangible impact on the reader and beyond

The critical work of
self-editing

Finding—or creating—avenues for publication that have the potential to generate sustainable income while contributing to the greater social and political good

Working collaboratively with editors, producers, fact-checkers, and agents

And last
but not least:

Speaking truth to power, even when confronted with efforts to intimidate, stonewall, censor, silence, or marginalize.

The Founders:

  • Jon Krakauer is the author of 8 books, including Into the Wild, Into Thin Air, Under the Banner of Heaven, and Missoula. Raised in Corvallis Oregon, he graduated from Hampshire College in 1976, after which he worked as a carpenter and commercial salmon fisherman in Alaska before embarking on a career as a writer. In 1999 he received an Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. According to the award citation, “Krakauer combines the tenacity and courage of the finest tradition of investigative journalism with the stylish subtlety and profound insight of the born writer.”

  • is an editor, publisher, and journalist who has worked with both emerging writers and winners of the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the Booker Prize. He has been the editor of Outside, Men's Journal, and Play: The New York Times Sports Magazine, as well as an executive editor of HarperCollins and the editor in chief and cofounder of Byliner, which helped pioneer long-form fiction and nonfiction storytelling in the digital space. He’s currently helping to lead a new original publishing program at Scribd, the subscription reading service, and is the executive director of Assignment, a new investigative journalism nonprofit, co-founded with Jon Krakauer and Linda Moore, dedicated to mentoring and supporting emerging writers.

    Mark has been fortunate to publish a range of authors including Margaret Atwood, David Foster Wallace, Roxane Gay, Annie Proulx, Michael Lewis, Jon Krakauer, Ann Patchett, Colum McCann, Charles Yu, Susan Orlean, David Quammen, Amy Tan, Alexandra Fuller, Richard Powers, and Lauren Groff. He led Outside to five National Magazine Awards, including a record three consecutive awards for General Excellence, and his work with The New York Times, Men’s Journal, and Byliner earned several additional finalist nominations. He’s also consulted for publishers and media companies including Condé Nast, Time Inc., Hearst, and The New York Times, and for the past several years has been a journalist in residence at Colorado College, teaching narrative nonfiction and bringing in guest speakers including Ta-Nehisi Coates, Barry Lopez, Roxane Gay, Peter Heller, and David Quammen.

  • It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.