The @washingtonpost Sunday Outlook section, a journalistic trailblazer for 68 years, published its last issue on Sept. 18. From June 1996 to early 2006, I had the privilege of leading its staff in the weekly hunt for new ideas and compelling voices.🧵1/41 
2/ Each week, we ran 7 to 9 pieces that, at their best, challenged orthodoxy and engaged readers with a mix of reportage, analysis, humor and first-person accounts that were long an Outlook hallmark.
3/ In a farewell piece that I co-wrote for the final edition, @RobertGKaiser and I focused on the section’s origins, its mission, its influence and the conditions that led to its end. wapo.st/3ymSJBB
4/ Now, inspired by this recent thread🧵of my colleague @AdamBKushner, Outlook’s last editor, I want to shine a digital spotlight on just a few of the many pieces from my years that both stand out and (I think!) stand the test of time.
https://twitter.com/adambkushner/status/1573415739326971913
5/ Anyone caring for an ailing, aging parent might find Dr. Jerald Winakur’s first-person essay, “What Are We Going to Do With Dad?” just as timely now as it was in 2005. wapo.st/3LQs05W
6/ Winakur’s piece, excerpted from the journal @Health_Affairs, was a sensation because he was writing from a dual perspective—both a son and a doctor of geriatric medicine. The Post’s Sunday circulation, then 900K+, boosted the essay’s profile and reach, especially in the media.
7/ Another unusual piece that year was about Outlook itself, describing our fact-checking of famous quotes, and how hard it was to prove their origins, such as that one about how the sausage is made: wapo.st/3r8Owxg
8/ A bit of context about those Outlook years: There were two presidents, Bill Clinton & George W. Bush. Both had been governors, prompting The Post’s @EJDionne to explore why voters were consistently …
9/ favoring governors (also Reagan and Carter) over senators (Dole, Kerry, McGovern, Humphrey) in choosing among the major party nominees for the White House: wapo.st/3xWM5S4
10/ Other standouts by Post writers: the late Lynne Duke, covering Hurricane Katrina in 2005, on why calling New Orleans a “third world country” was inaccurate and harmful to that city and the countries burdened with the label: wapo.st/3UKX1fg
11/ And @sabaatahir, then an intern on The Post’s foreign desk and now a bestselling novelist, writing in 2003 about why “I think I may agree to an arranged marriage.” wapo.st/3SpDhww
12/ Post alum Cynthia Gorney (@reporteracg), questioning the concept behind Amber Alerts and exploring the perils of turning untrained motorists into a “posse on wheels.” wapo.st/3UH16RL
13/ Also, Post diplomatic reporter @peterdslevin on George W. Bush’s rhetorical reliance on the word “freedom” and the risks that posed for U.S. foreign policy: wapo.st/3SBqfeN
14/ And @peterbakernyt and @sbg1, Post correspondents in Afghanistan, on why that war would not end any time soon. Their piece ran in June 2002. U.S troops remained another 19 years. wapo.st/3BRR6MU
15/ We published more than 4,000 pieces during my team’s tenure. Each week was a buffet, and so is this list—a feast of many flavors, eclectic rather than representative, but (I hope!) something for everyone.
16/ Outlook’s mission: Interpret, provoke, seek out contrary ideas, and help readers make a little more sense of the world. We brought that sensibility to covering terrorism and U.S. interventions in Somalia, Kosovo, Afghanistan & Iraq.
17/ The possibility of a U.S. invasion of Iraq in commanded our attention long before it began. In June 2002, @billgalston, who had served in the Clinton administration, warned that a first strike “will surely backfire.” wapo.st/3E2atWj
18/ A few months later, the Bush administration announced its willingness to engage in “pre-emption,” a major change in the U.S. approach to war. Outlook convened six experts and asked them to attack the issue from all sides.
19/ The experts (four men, two women) went at it for more than two hours on a Sept. 2002 afternoon. Their edited conversation, two full pages, is a powerful reminder of the risks of making war into more than a last resort: wapo.st/3fhCoHr
20/ To pierce the fog that often accompanies war, we sought first-hand accounts. In 2003, after three months with a U.S. team working on reconstruction in Iraq, diplomat Tim Carney wrote a candid account of good intentions going awry. wapo.st/3BMu4as
21/ When the Pentagon allowed reporters to “embed” with U.S. forces in Iraq, giving them unusual access but restricting their freedom of movement, we asked five Post correspondents to assess their experiences: wapo.st/3SFGMOK
22/ Outlook was always a team effort, so a pause here for a shout out to the editors & art directors whose skill & creativity defined the section during my years: Brian Kelly, @jeffersonmorley, @fbarbash, @FrancesSSellers, @StevenMufson…
23/ The shout out continues: @_KathleenCahill, @bonniebenwick, Nancy Szokan, Pat Monahan, @ZofiaSmardz, @ElizabethGChang, Nancy Szokan, Pat Monahan, Bob Webb, Beth Broadwater, Carol Porter, @JaneTouzalin, @maglatyj and Peter Alsberg.
24/ Richard Morin was already writing his Unconventional Wisdom column, highlighting “hot stats” from the social sciences. We delighted in new features: “Taking Liberties,” our home for humor pieces, and “Zeroing In,” our venue for examining “notions and numbers in the news.”
25/ But nothing gave us more pleasure than finding new voices. In 2001, @catiegetches first wrote about how 9/11 had made her job hunt more difficult (her impromptu visits were viewed as security threats): wapo.st/3SCwXRP
26/ Getches then wrote 10 more pieces over the next five years, including “MeMyselfandI.com,” her prescient analysis of companies using the Internet to personalize everything, fracturing rather than building community. wapo.st/3DTfyQN
27/ Bonnie Boyle wrote a “Letter from Durango,” her searing first-hand observation of living through a 2002 wildfire that burned 60,000 acres. Before the fire, she said, “We breathed clean air. I remember.” wapo.st/3SGzoD3
28/ In 2005, a Maryland high school senior, A. J. Willingham, wrote “At 17, Maybe I’m Too Young to Drive,” which probably didn’t win over many teenagers eager to get their driver’s license: wapo.st/3xXbPOm
29/ So many voices from the Middle East, across the spectrum, but perhaps none more plaintive than Ilan Goren, an Israeli in his late twenties, writing in 2002 of growing up in a constant state of war and... wapo.st/3DUWAcz
30/ …his generation’s “quiet despair, born of the realization that we kill them and they kill us and nobody is better off.” It pairs with Muhanned Tull’s 2003 cry: “Hopelessness is a Palestinian’s daily companion now.” wapo.st/3fqgfHb
31/ Or the fresh eyes of Robert J. McCartney (@McCartneyWP), then Post foreign editor and a former business editor, writing after his visit to the Middle East in early 2000 that a Palestinian state was doomed to failure and resentment...
32/ ...without Israel’s full and genuine cooperation in developing a truly robust Palestinian economy, with jobs and without the checkpoint delays that turn commutes into nightmares. wapo.st/3re3aU0
33/ Or another outsider, Helen Winternitz, a journalist who lived for 3 years in the West Bank village of Nahaleen, immersing herself to better understand and capture the reality of daily life under occupation: wapo.st/3SGuO7P
34/ Outlook was host to regular contributors such as linguist Deborah Tannen, the Georgetown professor whose revelatory work on how family members talk to each other has reshaped our understanding of family dynamics.
35/ A favorite from my time was a Tannen piece based on her 2006 book about mothers & daughters. “For girls and women,” she wrote, “talk is the glue that holds a relationship together—and the explosive that blows it apart.” wapo.st/3UWdiyr
36/ Patricia Dalton, a clinical psychologist, found ways to write honestly about what she saw in her practice without breaching confidentiality. Her 2001 piece, on the costs of excusing bad behavior, hit a nerve: wapo.st/3Sn5i7U
37/ As did a piece by @AsraNomani, a former Wall Street Journal reporter, describing what happened when she refused to obey her West Virginia mosque’s rules on the segregation of men and women: wapo.st/3RikmSI
38/ Pieces about race often caused a stir, such as Post staffer Natalie Hopkinson’s essay about house hunting in gentrifying D.C. “We were often the lone black faces vying for homes in historically black neighborhoods.” wapo.st/3UQWOaO
39/ From the world of personal finance, @ricedelman provided a devastating critique of the complexity of the U.S. tax code, and how average taxpayers were finding it impossible to plan without help: wapo.st/3SyhQJ4
40/ From the world of sports, as the 2000 Olympics were opening in Sydney, Christie Aschwanden (@cragcrest) wrote about why some athletes cheat and why she would rather lose than use performance-enhancing drugs: wapo.st/3ShuNaH
41 of 41/ Closing out this thread🧵, and this wildly selective sample, I offer my 2006 farewell to Outlook. Re-reading it 16 years later, I think it holds up well. If you made it this far, thanks for being here. wapo.st/3Cbu05j
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