Understandably, you have questions

Hey there. I’m Bill Murphy Jr.

I’m the guy responsible for Understandably. Good, bad or indifferent, it’s all on me.

This is a brand new website/email/media thingy. I haven’t 100% figured out how to define it, but I think it’s about “the story behind the story.”

Here’s an example. I read a great article on The Atlantic by Rachel Monroe.

She tells the story of Matthew Cox, who was convicted of fraud and sentenced to 26 years in federal prison, where he turned his life around — well, maybe, that’s a big part of the story — and who is now trying to become a true crime writer, based largely on all the lives of all the other criminals he was locked up with.

That’s a pretty wild story, but what I’m getting at here is why she’s writing about him.

How did she even know about this prison inmate doing two and a half decades?

Did she hear about him while writing another story? Did she go to college with his cousin? Did she see a quick story about him on some blog somewhere, and dig deeper?

Nope. He col…