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Writers

Matthew Shaer

Business

When the Virus Came for the American Dream

Buford Highway, in suburban Atlanta, has long been a place where immigrant entrepreneurs could build businesses and get ahead. Not this year.

Matthew Shaer New York Times Magazine Nov 2020 30min Permalink

Health

‘Something Extremely Bad Is Happening Here’

Teens are dying by suicide at an alarming rate. Public health officials call it a crisis. Researchers have identified several clusters nationwide. The survivors in this Arizona community are fighting back.

Matthew Shaer Esquire Oct 2020 25min Permalink

Science Health

Scientists Are Giving Dead Brains New Life. What Could Go Wrong?

In experiments on pig organs, scientists at Yale made a discovery that could someday challenge our understanding of what it means to die.

Matthew Shaer New York Times Magazine Jul 2019 35min Permalink

Arts Business

The Invention of the ‘Salvator Mundi’

In 2005, the painting sold at auction for $1,000. Its most recent price? $450 million.

Matthew Shaer New York Apr 2019 35min Permalink

Crime

How Cities Make Money by Fining the Poor

In many parts of America, like Corinth, Miss., judges are locking up defendants who can’t pay—sometimes for months at a time.

Matthew Shaer The New York Times Magazine Jan 2019 25min Permalink

The Long, Lonely Road of Chelsea Manning

Her disclosure of classified documents in 2010 ushered in the age of leaks. Now, freed from prison, she talks about why she did it—and the isolation that followed.

Matthew Shaer New York Times Magazine Jun 2017 40min Permalink

History

The Holocaust's Great Escape

A discovery in a Lithuanian forest brings a tale of survival back to life.

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Shaer on the Longform Podcast

Matthew Shaer Smithsonian Magazine Mar 2017 20min Permalink

World

M.I.A.

Half a century ago, an American commando vanished in the jungles of Laos. In 2008, he reappeared in Vietnam, reportedly alive and well. But nothing was what it seemed.

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Shaer on the Longform Podcast

Matthew Shaer The Atavist Magazine Feb 2017 35min Permalink

Crime Science

The False Promise of DNA Testing

Once viewed as a forensic “silver bullet,” DNA evidence is coming under fire.

Matthew Shaer The Atlantic May 2016 25min Permalink

Refuge: One Syrian Family’s Long Odyssey to Georgia

Of the 4.5 million Syrians who have fled their nation’s bloody civil war, fewer than 3,000 have made it to America. This is one family’s story.

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Previously: Matthew Shaer on the Longform Podcast

Matthew Shaer Atlanta Magazine May 2016 20min Permalink

The Wreck of Amtrak 188

The search for answers after the worst American rail disaster in decades.

Matthew Shaer New York Times Magazine Jan 2016 25min Permalink

Business Sports Media

Sneaker Wars

Inside the paranoid world of Nike headquarters, where people are worried that Adidas might finally be capable of taking over the sneaker industry.

Matthew Shaer GQ Sep 2015 15min Permalink

Crime

Whatsoever Things Are True

Thirty-three years ago, a Chicago man was sentenced to death for murder. In 1999, another man confessed to the crime. Today, they are both free.

Matthew Shaer The Atavist Magazine Sep 2015 1h Permalink

World

"The Media Doesn’t Care What Happens Here"

In the age of citizen journalism, smartphones and streaming video, bearing witness to human rights violations is getting easier. Is it also making justice more complicated?

Matthew Shaer New York Times Magazine Feb 2015 20min Permalink

Science

Can the Siberian Tiger Make a Comeback?

In Russia’s Far East, an orphaned female tiger is the test case in an experimental effort to save one of the most endangered animals on earth.

Matthew Shaer Smithsonian Jan 2015 Permalink

Religion

The Orthodox Hit Squad

One rabbi’s tactics against husbands who refuse to divorce their wives.

Matthew Shaer GQ Sep 2014 15min Permalink

Business Crime World

Sun and Shadows

How the island paradise of Seychelles became a magnet for money launderers and tax dodgers.

Matthew Shaer, Michael Hudson, Margot Williams International Consortium of Investigative Journalists Jun 2014 25min Permalink

Crime Sports World

How Thailand's Most Notorious Prison Became a Fight Club

The Muay Thai fighters of Klong Prem.

Matthew Shaer Men's Journal Apr 2014 15min Permalink

Arts Business

Why Abercrombie Is Losing Its Shirt

The rise and fall of a teen fashion empire.

Matthew Shaer New York Feb 2014 15min Permalink

World Media

On the Ground With Syria's News Smugglers

How citizen journalists are covering the war.

Matthew Shaer The New Republic Oct 2013 15min Permalink

Tech

Life, Death, and Free Culture in the Mission

On Ilya Zhitomirskiy, an idealistic young developer who committed suicide 18 months after founding Diaspora, his well-publicized, open-source alternative to Facebook.

Matthew Shaer Fortune Mar 2013 20min Permalink

Best Article Crime

A Monster Among the 'Frum'

On the murder of a young Hasidic boy in Brooklyn.

Matthew Shaer New York Dec 2011 25min Permalink