Most famously (in my mind anyway) is the 300-word plug that ran in the New York Times Nov. 16, 1959:

Holcomb, Kan., (UPI) — A wealthy wheat farmer, his wife and their two young children were found shot to death today in their home. They had been killed by shotgun blasts at close range after being bound and gagged … There were no signs of a struggle, and nothing had been stolen. The telephone lines had been cut.

Truman Capote wasted little time traveling to Kansas to investigate the murders. And we all know how that turned out.

More recently, Esquire journalist Luke Dittrich credits his mother for mentioning the chilling audio she’d heard on NPR from a video of survivors of the May 22, 2011 Joplin, Mo., tornado, which killed 160 people. Dittrich transformed the YouTube video into his amazing story, “Heavenly Father!…” about two dozen survivors waiting to die as they huddled in a gas station cooler.

His mother told him: “I was listening to NPR and they had this audio of something about people trapped in a (gas station) cooler in Joplin.” She said she thought there was something on YouTube about it, so I went and found the video. I’m not sure how many of you have watched it but it’s an insanely moving document. At least for me it was. I’d never heard anything like it. I started immediately thinking, ‘Okay, do we know who these people are?’ It instantly seemed that (the people in the cooler) was an untold story.”

“They had every reason to believe they were about to die and in their last moments they expressed love to these strangers. There was something totally beautiful to me about that. That, to me, is the climax of the story, when they start saying, ‘I love all of you.’”

Given the accessibility of the YouTube footage, Dittrich likely wasn’t the only reporter seeking the storyline. But Dittrich told the Nieman Storyboard: “I was terrified that there would be lots of competition. As far as I know there wasn’t anybody else looking for these people, which surprised me.”

Dittrich first tracked down Isaac Duncan, who shot the video. He offered names of his friends and the store clerk. The rest? Classic reporting: Dittrich planted himself at the scene and talked to everyone who stopped by.