THE MASTHEAD

The Newsroom

Independent voices united by editorial standards, narrow grievances and continued access to the group chat.

THE MASTHEAD IS NOT CLOSEDCorrespondents, specialists and guest columnists may appear whenever a story requires a new kind of professional defect.

Sabine March

Sabine March began her career assisting a magazine editor who sent her abroad to cover a wedding and neglected to arrange her return. She stayed for several years. Subsequent work has involved society pages, travel assignments, sporting events, and a period in private hospitality about which she is politely unhelpful.

March has old friends in cities where she claims never to have lived. She travels light, dresses for dinner even when eating alone, and is capable of making a borrowed apartment feel as though its owner is visiting her. She dislikes elaborate welcomes and remembers small kindnesses for decades.

Her dispatches arrive from stadium concourses, hotel terraces, and parties she had apparently not planned to attend. She is often still there after the person who invited her has gone home.

March is a considerate houseguest who replaces the wine, learns the dog’s routine, and leaves before anyone has to ask about her plans. Months later, a book will arrive with a passage marked that explains something you had forgotten telling her. There is rarely a note.

Maude Gannon

Maude Gannon grew up in a house where football was watched in near silence and discussed for the rest of the week. She spent several years charting games for a scouting service, followed by a shorter period working for a coach who liked her reports until she began including his decisions. She still has the reports.

Away from football, Gannon is a patient cook, an impatient passenger, and the person her friends ask to look over a contract before they sign it. She remembers what everyone ordered last time. Her idea of affection is noticing a problem early enough that you never have to deal with it.

She swims before work and keeps a spare pair of goggles in her car because someone always forgets theirs. At games, she prefers a seat high enough to see the blocking develop. She has declined better tickets for this reason, causing considerable tension with people who had already agreed to meet her downstairs.

Gannon joined The Brief on the understanding that she would have room to explain herself. Her first piece came back with a request to make it shorter. She removed the introduction.

Conrad Sorrell

Conrad Sorrell spent the early part of his career trying to get invited into important rooms. Having largely succeeded, he now writes about the people he found there. He remains on several of the guest lists, an arrangement that has required generosity from his hosts and selective reading on both sides.

Before joining The Brief, Sorrell wrote newspaper editorials, magazine columns, and one speech for a man he subsequently devoted considerable space to criticizing. He was paid more for the speech. This fact has not improved his opinion of the man.

Sorrell enjoys a long lunch, keeps his shoes in excellent condition, and follows a losing team with a loyalty he would find embarrassing in another context. He is more sentimental than his work suggests, particularly about his father, old sportswriters, and restaurants that still answer the telephone.

He writes thank-you notes by hand and remembers who failed to send one. When a favorite restaurant closed, he spent months blaming the landlord before admitting that he had not eaten there in two years. He still has its number saved.

Hollis Crane

Hollis Crane came up through local newspapers, where he covered courthouse hearings, county fairs, and the closure of a public swimming pool that he still believes warranted a second installment. His career has since taken him through sports, politics, and several publications whose former editors describe him with a long pause before saying something kind.

Crane has a weakness for people trying very hard at things the rest of the world has decided are unimportant. He can spend an afternoon watching a man repair a scoreboard and come away unable to talk about anything else. Assignments routinely grow longer after he meets someone’s father.

He lives among books, hotel stationery, and boxes he considers temporarily unpacked. He is excellent company on a long drive, provided arrival time is flexible. His friends know that “one more drink” may mean one more drink or a conversation about their childhood that neither party was adequately prepared to have.

Crane keeps the phone numbers of people he interviewed twenty years ago. Sometimes he calls to check a detail. More often, he wants to know whether the daughter got into college or the town ever reopened the pool.

Dashiell Pike

Dashiell Pike spent nine years advising people who owned things on whether they should own more of them. He moved into journalism after discovering that the questions he most wanted answered were usually outside the scope of the engagement. His former colleagues occasionally send him corrections from their work accounts and encouragement from their personal ones.

Pike grew up around a family business, where an increase in rent could change the mood of an entire summer. He still takes an interest in who owns the building. He retains an affection for the practical details of running something: a well-kept stockroom, a sensible contract, an employee who knows where everything is.

He is a devoted cook and an unnecessarily thorough planner of holidays. Friends have learned to specify when a restaurant recommendation should consist only of a restaurant. He has been considering buying a small place somewhere quiet for several years, during which time he has talked three other people out of doing so.

At The Brief, Pike covers ownership, money, and the arrangements people make when they expect to be dealing with one another for a long time. He plays fantasy football in much the same spirit, although his league has asked him to stop referring to the other managers as counterparties.

Marnie Kells

Marnie Kells covers culture and sporting life for The Brief. She previously worked at a magazine whose closure she learned about from a publicist asking where to send a candle. She is interested in celebrities with something to prove, athletes with production companies, and statements released through representatives.

Kells lives in New York, where she has been meaning to leave for six years. She maintains cordial relations with three former employers and an adversarial relationship with a restaurant she continues to recommend. Her friends have asked her to stop describing their breakups as a developing story.

She remembers what people wore when they delivered bad news and has an alarming ability to locate a deleted post while appearing to listen to you. She cries easily at retirement ceremonies, including those involving players she has spent years making fun of. She generally watches these alone.

Kells joined The Brief after being assured there would be an expense account. That conversation remains ongoing.

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