The document lists the top 10 articles of 2014 chosen for being interesting, analyzing current topics, and providing historical context. The #1 article discusses how the most efficient factory in America was shut down without explanation of the reasons behind the closing and offshoring of manufacturing jobs. The #2 article profiles the wrongful 3-year imprisonment of a man in Rikers without being convicted of a crime. The #3 article is an interview where comedian Chris Rock discusses racism in America.

1. 2014
THE TEN BEST READS OF

2. WHY SPEND THE
TIME IDENTIFYING
THE BEST 10
ARTICLES OF THE
YEAR?

3. WHY NOT?

4. ARTICLES WERE
CHOSEN FOR THE
FOLLOWING
REASONS

5. 1. INTERESTING

6. 2. ANALYZE A CURRENT
TOPIC*
*CURRENT TOPIC

7. 3. PROVIDE HISTORICAL
CONTEXT*
*HISTORICAL CONTEXT

8. 10bestreadsof2014
the
WWW.ERICGARDNER.NET
REMBERT BROWNE - GRANTLAND
The Front Lines
Of Ferguson
At that moment, I didn’t feel like a journalist. There
was nothing about this event that I felt the need to
chronicle. There was no time to find out what the
bombs actually were and what was actually coming
out of the guns and what type of gas was coming
out of the canisters. In this moment, there was
nothing I felt the need to broadcast to the world. I
didn’t even have the desire to communicate my
safety or lack thereof.
I was just a black man in Ferguson. ❞
2014 CIVIL PROTEST
US RACE RELATIONS
RELEVANCE
A COMPELLING AND PERSONAL
NARRATIVE ABOUT FERGUSON
10

9. 10bestreadsof2014
the
WWW.ERICGARDNER.NET
SAM BORDEN – NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE
How Jurgen
Klinsmann Plans to
Make U.S. Soccer
Better (and Less
American)
❞
Strictly speaking, when Klinsmann signed a contract
with U.S. Soccer in 2011, he became the first
foreigner to coach the Americans in 16 years. From
the beginning, though, everyone knew this hire was
different. Klinsmann was not Bora Milutinovic, the
last non-American to hold the job. Milutinovic was a
mercenary, his coaching résumé basically a map of
the world. Klinsmann is an immigrant, a hybrid
whose job is to do well in Brazil, to be sure, but also
to bring an enduring European approach to the way
soccer is played in America.
RELEVANCE
CHANGE MANAGEMENT
INTERNATIONAL SOCCER
A WORLD CUP PREVIEW + PRIMER FOR
REFORMING AN OLD ORGANIZATION
9

10. 10bestreadsof2014
the
WWW.ERICGARDNER.NET
MATT TAIBBI – ROLLING STONE MAGAZINE
The 9 Billion Dollar
Witness
❞
After that meeting, Fleischmann testified, she
approached a managing director named Greg
Boester and pleaded with him to reconsider. She
says she told Boester that the bank could not sell
the high-risk loans as low-risk securities without
committing fraud. "You can't securitize these loans
without special disclosure about what's wrong with
them," Fleischmann told him, "and if you make that
disclosure, no one will buy them."
RELEVANCE
GLOBAL FINANCIAL CRISIS
GOVERNMENT CORRUPTION
JP MORGAN PAID $9 BILLION TO KEEP
HER QUIET. FIND OUT WHY.
8

11. 10bestreadsof2014
the
WWW.ERICGARDNER.NET
GEORGE PACKER – THE NEW YORKER
The Quiet German
RELEVANCE
❞
Among German leaders, Merkel is a triple anomaly:
a woman (divorced, remarried, no children), a
scientist (quantum chemistry), and an Ossi (a
product of East Germany). These qualities, though
making her an outsider in German politics, also
helped to propel her extraordinary rise. Yet some
observers, attempting to explain her success, look
everywhere but to Merkel herself.
THE POWER OF PRAGNATISM
A RE-EMERGED GERMANY
HOW AN UNASSUMING EAST GERMAN
PHYSICIST BECAME THE MOST
POWERFUL PERSON IN EUROPE
7
GEORGE PACKER – THE NEW YORKER

12. 10bestreadsof2014
the
WWW.ERICGARDNER.NET
ALEX PASTERNACK - VICE
The Woman Who
Captured Snowden
❞
Poitras, who was already more than a year into her
surveillance documentary, pushed back. "I said that
'really, it's important for you to articulate your
motivations and for me to understand your
motivation. It's important because people are going
to speculate.'" Snowden, she added, "had taken
every risk there was to be taken." A video camera
"added risk, but added risk to what? He risked pretty
much everything. So I made an argument of why it
would be of importance to have a record. It's not
every day that somebody risks so much."
RELEVANCE
STORY TELLING IN THE MODEN AGE
PRIVACY AND EDWARD SNOWDEN
THE WOMAN EDWARD SNOWDEN
TRUSTED TO TELL HIS STORY
6

13. 10bestreadsof2014
the
WWW.ERICGARDNER.NET
DAVID GRAEBER AND THOMAS PIKETTY – THE BAFFLER
Soak the Rich
❞
Is it possible to fight tax evasion? Yes, if you want
to, you can. When modern governments really want
their decisions to be respected, they succeed in
getting them respected. When Western
governments want to send a million soldiers to
Kuwait to prevent Kuwaiti oil from being seized by
Iraq, they do it. Let’s be serious: If they are not
afraid of an Iraq, they have no reason to fear the
Bahamas or New Jersey. Levying progressive taxes
on wealth and capital poses no technical problems.
It is a matter of political will.
RELEVANCE
ROLE OF THEORY IN POLICY
ECONOMIC INEQUALITY
TWO EXPERTS DISCUSS THE YEAR’S
MOST IMPORTANT TOPIC
5

14. 10bestreadsof2014
the
WWW.ERICGARDNER.NET
Svetlana V. - MEDIUM
Sex is Sex.
Money is Money.
❞
Clients knew me as Angelina or Anna…Angelina
cost $800 an hour, $4,000 for the night; Anna ran
$900 and $5,000. According to rankings in The
Erotic Review (TER), the Yelp of the commercial sex
world, each rated in the top 1 percent of all escorts.
But there are lots of young, pretty girls in my
business. What got me to the top — and what kept
me there — was my work ethic and attention to
detail. I was successful because I learned some
hard, valuable lessons about making it in the sex-
for-money business.
RELEVANCE
THE BLACK MARKET ECONOMY
CAPITALISM IN PRACTICE
A CASE STUDY ON THE WORLD’S
OLDEST PROFESSION
4

15. 10bestreadsof2014
the
WWW.ERICGARDNER.NET
FRANK RICH – NEW YORK MAGAZINE
In Conversation:
Chris Rock
❞
Lost in Translation is a black movie: That’s what it
feels like to be black and rich. Not in the sense that
people are being mean to you. Bill Murray’s in
Tokyo, and it’s just weird. He seems kind of
isolated…But the thing is, we treat racism in this
country like it’s a style that America went through.
Like flared legs and lava lamps. Oh, that crazy thing
we did. We were hanging black people. We treat it
like a fad instead of a disease that eradicates
millions of people.
RELEVANCE
RACE/POWER IN 2014
THE BUSINESS OF ENTERTAINMENT
A MODERN PHILOSOPHER TALKS
SOCIETY
3

16. 10bestreadsof2014
the
WWW.ERICGARDNER.NET
JENNIFER GONNERMAN – THE NEW YORKER
Before the Law
❞
Browder could not believe what was happening. His
battle to prove his innocence had ended. No trial, no
jury, no verdict. An assistant district attorney filed a
memo with the court explaining that Bautista, the
man who had accused Browder, had gone back to
Mexico…Browder had to spend one more night on
Rikers... By now, he had missed his junior year of
high school, his senior year, graduation, the prom.
He was no longer a teen-ager; four days earlier, he
had turned twenty.
RELEVANCE
INCOME INEQUALITY
CRIMINAL JUSTICE REFORM
3 YEARS IN PRISON W/O BEING
CONVICTED OF A CRIME
2

17. 10bestreadsof2014
the
WWW.ERICGARDNER.NET
ESTHER KAPLAN – VQR ONLINE
Losing Sparta
❞
For something so vital to the future of the US
economy, there’s disturbingly little data collected
about plant closings and offshoring, let alone
analysis of what goes into these decisions.
Corporate annual reports and SEC filings are silent
about the logic behind closings. Philips’s 2010 SEC
filings, for example, reveal nothing.., beyond a brief
reference to “initiatives to structurally reduce our
overall cost structure” and “transferring technologies
to low-​cost countries.”
RELEVANCE
DECLINE OF THE AMERICAN MIDDLE
CLASS
GLOBALIZATION
THE MOST EFFICIENT FACTORY IN
AMERICA WAS SHUT DOWN. BUT WHY?
1

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19. IMAGE CREDITS
Introduction. Spyros Papaspyropoulos – “Magazine Stand”
1. Stefan Ray - “Abandoned factory in Lurgan”
2. Thomas Hawk – “Prison Bound”
3. Derek Key – “Mic Stand”
4. Tom Coates – “This is not a brothel..”
5. F Delventhal - “The Brea Line Sculpture”
6. Kris Krüg – “Laura Poitras – PopTeh 2010”
7. European Council – “Angela Merkel”
8. Allison Harger – “Untitled”
9. George – “#WordCup”
10. Joe Newman – “#DCFerguson”