My First Byline: John Stanton
Editor in chief, Gambit
What is your current job?
Editor-in-Chief of Gambit, New Orleans' alt weekly newspaper.
What was your first byline?
This is a tricky one, since I worked at Inside Washington Publishers at the start of my career and there were no bylines, despite the fact that I wrote dozens of stories a month.
My first actual byline was in National Journal’s Congress Daily (RIP), though I don’t remember what the story was.
My first meaningful story was when I got a copy of, and printed, the Clinton administration’s secret plan to use Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act to fight environmental racism. EPA Administrator Carol Browner had buried the plan for years, lying to activists and communities that the agency and DOJ were still “working” on it when in fact she’d shelved it because of the potential financial impacts on industry.
What was your first real job in journalism?
At IWP. I wrote for the biweekly newsletter – which was an actual, physical newsletter printed on orange paper – called RCRA Report which covered the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. It was a fun but insane job. We worked 60+ hours a week covering the bowels of EPA's solid and hazardous waste divisions, state and federal courts and legislation.
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How did you get it?
I’d moved home from Montana and was living with then wife at my parents' house. I was trying to get a job doing environmentalist type work, but not finding much. One day I woke up to find a want ad cut out of the Washington Post lying on my chest. It was for a reporter gig covering environmental issues. My pop – who was then a lawyer but had been a reporter in Chicago in the 60s and whose father was also a reporter and editor his entire career – called me and asked if I'd found the “note” he left.
He figured since I liked environmental issues and that journalism was something of family business, that I should apply. He then calmly explained that I had four days to get this job, or some other “professional job” since I’d graduated from college (SPOILER: I had not, in fact, graduated) and that if I wasn’t gainfully employed by then, he would have one of the repo men he represented come to the house and physically throw me and my stuff out of his house.
I got the job two days later.
What advice do you have for people looking to break into journalism?
A couple of things. First, don’t let your editor bully you into working bananas hours for low pay. My generation went along with the whole “pay your dues” nonsense thinking that “this is how it has to be.” It doesn’t! Nobody does journalism because it’s a fixed hour type job that you walk away from at the end of the day. And every good reporter obsesses over stories and spends off-hours working. But there’s a big difference between that and being taken advantage of.
Relatedly, and this comes from my former editor Tina Susman, ALWAYS take your vacation, and when you do, DO NOT WORK. Tina used to yell at me because I’d be on vacation somewhere and still filing stories. Paid time off is part of your compensation, so don’t give it back to your employer for free. As a corollary, never forget your company is not your family and they will definitely fire you if it suits their bottom line.
Always ask dumb questions.
Get comfortable with silence. Eventually your subject will start talking.
Don’t let people talk you circles, especially people paid to talk to you. Their job is to confuse and obfuscate to promote their bosses’ interests.
The police, politicians, CEOs and rich people are never reliable primary sources. They have an agenda and they always use their position of power to further it. So don’t take what they say as gospel fact.
Likewise, don’t assume regular people understand the consequences of talking on the record. Make sure you tell them.
Especially if you’re a beat reporter, remember to forget everything you know when you’re writing. If you don’t, you’ll always end up assuming readers know stuff that seems obvious, leave it out and end up writing over peoples' heads.
Find John on Instagram.