Ken Armstrong
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bykenarmstrong.bsky.social
Ken Armstrong
@bykenarmstrong.bsky.social
Reporter/editor/narrative coach @Bloomberg.com. Co-author, Unbelievable. Law school dropout/honorary doctor. Formers: ProPublica, Marshall Project, Seattle Times. Perturbable.
https://kenarmstrongwriter.com/
Top three stories on @propublica.org right now
August 27, 2025 at 11:00 PM
I love reading how writers edit themselves, so to read how E.B. White revised and revised to write this, "a single perfect paragraph," is delightful. (Also? I had no idea that anyone had ever been labeled a "paragrapher.")
@nathanheller.bsky.social @newyorker.com
link.newyorker.com/view/5be9f03...
August 24, 2025 at 9:49 PM
Thank you, @lastweektonight.com, for highlighting this @wpln.bsky.social @propublica.org story on tonight's show on juvenile justice.

And yes, these children were jailed on a charge that is not an actual charge. That was just one of the ways in which the system broke down.

For link to the story ⬇️
June 16, 2025 at 4:43 AM
Also?
"...there are people very far from Washington, D.C., who are making decisions that have a dramatic impact on how the White House's immigration policy is carried out on the ground. And I think a lot of these more local decisions get ignored
because they seem routine or boring or small..."
May 30, 2025 at 10:38 PM
Susan Brownmiller's work was foundational. In "Unbelievable," my book with T. Christian Miller, we wrote at length about the criminal justice system's history of treating women's reports of rape with knee-jerk skepticism. And we started with an indelible line from Brownmiller.
May 25, 2025 at 7:45 PM
March 16, 2025 at 10:54 PM
When the first two lines are as great as this...

"I'm not going to lie," Sam Bankman-Fried told me.

This was a lie.

... it's no surprise the next 242 pages fly by.

To understand crypto—or to understand why there is no understanding crypto—you gotta read "Number Go Up," by @zekefaux.bsky.social.
March 13, 2025 at 2:46 AM
"After President Donald Trump canceled a report on the state of nature in the US, the scientists ... say they’ll continue their work and build on it."

"Many publishers have since stepped forward..."

"Copy editors, artists and others have volunteered to help."
www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news...
February 17, 2025 at 9:33 PM
For what it's worth, these are the eight non-existent cases the lawyers' AI platform "hallucinated":
February 17, 2025 at 8:50 PM
Recently finished this book by @ahylton26.bsky.social and can't recommend it enough. Brave, brilliant, illuminating, enraging. An extraordinary work that says so much about where we've been and where we are.
February 15, 2025 at 8:37 PM
Thank you, @csobelwrites.bsky.social @wsj.com, for including "Scoreboard, Baby" in your five best books on college football.

Quite confident this will be the only time that anything I've written will appear on the same list as a novel by Don DeLillo.
January 18, 2025 at 2:48 AM
And in this @bloomberg.com story by Olivia Carville on teenagers caught up in sextortion scams, Carville provides a text exchange between a 17-year-old who’s unraveling and a scammer applying unrelenting pressure.
www.bloomberg.com/features/202...
December 31, 2024 at 8:07 PM
At year’s end, when thinking of stories that hit me hard, it’s often dialogue I remember most. Two examples from 2024:

In this @propublica.org story, @davidmcswane.bsky.social builds and builds until he confronts a doctor with a question that's chillingly direct.
www.propublica.org/article/thom...
December 31, 2024 at 8:05 PM
You should always read @jasonleopold.bsky.social, but this week in particular you must read Jason Leopold, because, I mean, just look at this lead. Jason's work is a testament to the power of public records—and to the persistence needed to get them. He's a force of nature.
@bloomberg.com
November 22, 2024 at 5:12 PM
If you don't already, I'd recommend subscribing to Local Matters, a free weekly roundup of investigative reporting from @ire-nicar.bsky.social. Below is but one item in this week's newsletter. The others are just as maddening.

Subscribe here: linktr.ee/lmattersnews
November 17, 2024 at 7:10 PM