These newspaper and magazine copy editors blog about usage, style, grammar, punctuation and, most importantly, how to avoid language-related pratfalls:

The Cranky Copy Editor

Words to the Wise

Words at Work

Engine Room

Capote. Mailer. Didion. Wolfe. These literary lions burst the conventions of traditional journalism, helping invent a "new journalism" through their storytelling that forever changed the way we look at our culture. Check out these books to read more:

The Gang That Wouldn't Write Straight (the story of New Journalism)

Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers by Tom Wolfe

Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion

The Baltimore Sun's chief copy editor John McIntyre publishes an excellent blog on language and usage called You Don't Say. He recently posted a list of "other people who are writing intelligently and practically about language." Check out:

Style and Substance

Common Sense Journalism

Verbal Energy

The Editor's Desk

Sometimes you read a journalist's account of a place, person or situation that draws you in so deep you forget you're reading "news." They're more than just stories: The real-life scenes immerse you in a way that not only sticks, sometimes forever, but gives you meaning. To your humble editor, the absolute lion of this kind of journalism -- literary journalism -- was a legendary Polish reporter named Ryszard Kapuscinski, who sadly passed away last month. He was a hero, too, to a Canadian journalist named Deborah Campbell. Besides writing about the Middle East, Cuba and Russia and other places for leading publications, Deborah teaches literary journalism at the University of British Columbia. We had a fascinating conversation with her about this genre: