Like the Atlantic, the New Yorker has a long history of bringing great coverage of current events (as well as short stories and essays by the likes of Steve Martin, Woody Allen, etc). There are a host of classic stories from the NYer too, like Philip Gourevitch’s coverage of the Rwandan Genocide and Sy Hersh’s coverage of Abu Ghraib.
But more recently, they’ve also produced some of the best terrorism coverage anywhere. Jeffrey Goldberg’s two-part story on Hezbollah remains one of the best open source looks at the Lebanese group and its connections in South America’s Tri-Border Region. Lawrence Wright’s coverage of Al Qaeda is also unparalleled (except maybe by Peter Bergen). His profile of Ayman al Zawahiri, coverage of new AQ theorists like Abu Musab al Suri and Abu Bakr Naji, and his take on the recantations of Dr. Fadl, are modern classics. Finally, George Packer who manages to cover every conceivable topic well, did a phenomenal piece on the adoption of social science methods by the US military for counter-insurgency.
In the Party of God by Jeffrey Goldberg
Part 1, Part 2
The Man Behind Bin Laden by Lawrence Wright
The Master Plan by Lawrence Wright
The Rebellion Within by Lawrence Wright
Knowing the Enemy by George Packer
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