Byline Confidential

Elvia Malagon covers crime for the Times of Northwest Indiana. A fun talk about: An alleged serial killer in Gary IndianaCrazy FloridiansThe importance of storytelling relatives, like the grandmother who "always tells these really depressing stories" that "sound really uplifting" but end with death With stints at newspapers in Florida and Kentucky, and with the New York Times Student Journalism Institute, Elvia has a lot of fun ...

As a child, Jackie Spinner always wanted to be the first of her siblings to tell her mother what they’d seen.

That instinct took her from the Daily Egyptian at Southern Illinois University to the Washington Post and Iraq. Now she’s a media reporter with the Columbia Journalism Review and a professor at Columbia College Chicago.

Jackie's a great reporter and we had ...

He's been misidentified as "The Bearded Bandit" and dubbed "The" Matt O'Connor in Japan. Today, Matt is a "mild-mannered" newspaper editor at the Chicago Tribune, where he's covered public corruption at federal courts (including corrupt Gov. George Ryan), crime in Cook County (the Dowaliby kid-killing trial), and business. Before that, he's got amazing tales from his early days covering Caterpillar for the Peoria Journal Sta...

On a beautiful summer afternoon, Mary Schmich and I sat near the top of Tribune Tower and talked about her life in journalism: Mary’s discovery, at an early age, that you could have fun with words (“Fuse confusion”). Her memories of working at the LA Times, where she worked on a typewriter in the fog of cigarette smoke and learned to write for newspapers by going through copy sheets. Why she believes being a journalist is being ...

This is the sex, drugs and journalism edition of Byline Confidential, starring Dennis Black! Dennis is an old Texas wiseass with endless great stories: the time he asked Miss America who washes her underwear, intern torture, troublemaker reporters inserting funk into their copy to see if it gets caught. (“We can’t say 37 big knockers.") He edited sports copy at the Dallas Morning News and Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and report...

In Mexico, being a female journalist is often considered an MMC career: “mientras me caso,” or “while I get married.”

Not for Gisela Orozco, who has been a reporter and editor for 15 years. Gisela is currently the entertainment editor at Hoy in Chicago, where she writes about all sorts of cool stuff while balancing being a single mother.

She’s a talented woman who grew up in ...

Maya Schenwar is Truthout's Editor-in-Chief and the author of Locked Down, Locked Out, a fascinating new book about the prison system. A really fun interview about her career and detours, including time spent farming in Europe at a "center for spiritual wellness." Maya also opens up about her sister's experiences in the criminal justice system, pregnant women delivering their babies in jail, being pen-pals with Steven Michael...

Bloomberg's Bryan Gruley shared a Pulitzer Prize for coverage of 9/11 at the Wall Street Journal. He's recently been on the elderly sex beat, reporting fascinating stories like this one: "Can a wife with dementia say yes to sex?" Gruley has interesting tales about dark days and good men: 9/11, the World War II Lt. who shielded refugees in Dachau against army orders, overwriting a hostage situation as a young journali...

Eric Roper is one of the best young journalists in America.

Hear:

His humble beginnings as editor of the George Washington University student newspaper and a correction controversy over the phase-out of an unofficial hippo mascot (and how it haunts him);

What it's like to cover a city, Minneapolis, and all of its many data points for the Star ...

(Photo courtesy of Marcus DiPaola.)

Freelance photographer Marcus DiPaola went to Liberia last month in search of stories, treatment centers and rural areas. He came back with entertaining, harrowing and sad tales of:

Burial teams struggling to collect the dead from folks that won’t give them up;

Orphans left behind by...

Britt Robson is his own man.

He learned journalism on the road hitchhiking across the country and wrote his first magazine story on Cincinnati mayor Jerry Springer. Over the years, he's become a respected NBA writer and music scribe. For a time, he penned speeches or Rudy Perpich, Minnesota's "Governor Goofy."

Fun anecdotes about Ken Garnett, Glen Taylor...

Emily Gurnon has the steak!

As a Pioneer Press courts reporter, Emily helped free a man from prison. In San Francisco, she exposed shady hotels, watched a heroin user shoot up ("God loves me") and got pranked by the alternative weekly. She even survived flying cockroaches and mean people at the (1994!) Chicago Tribune.

A fun chat with a great reporter wh...

KSMP's Tom Lyden is one of the Twin Cities' best investigative reporters. A great episode about: Learning his trade at the University of Missouri Covering the story of a mill worker killed by his colleagues in Green Bay, Wisconsin Investigating cult leader Victor Bernard Being overwhelmed by skyscrapers when he drove into Saint Paul What it was like to be caught in a firestorm over a decision to take a tape from the back ...

Star Tribune reporter Maya Rao spent a month working at the Wild Bison truck stop in North Dakota for a story this summer. In this week’s episode she explains what went into her excellent Atlantic piece about the North Dakota oil boom, discusses the importance of taking risks, and opens up about her career in the news business (including tales of corrupt New Jersey pols and the off-duty Minneapolis cop doing work at electronic d...

For two years, Adam Sege worked as an overnight breaking news reporter for the Chicago Tribune. In this week's episode, Adam talks about the emotion at crime scenes, what he's observed about life for those growing up in gang neighborhoods, and the humanity Chicago violence leaves behind. An interesting chat about pain, compassion, crime, and life in the city: "I really want those scenes to stay with me." He's going to South ...