anderswolleck

Jason Leopold has written News Junkie a book that not only every single journalist, of every kind, should read but it should be read by every person who wants to find out how the world really works. While Leopold was a boozer and a user he was also a journalist for such prestigious places as the Los Angeles division of Dow Jones Newswires. Before getting that big and very important job he was a cocaine addict who stole thousands of CDs from a record label while working there. But after kicking drugs he got hooked on another feeling, that of breaking top news stories. While alienating his colleagues Leopold broke key stories about the California energy crisis and Enron. But because of Leopolds addiction to the rush he got sloppy and was ridiculed. News Junkie chronicles his rise, fall, then rise again, then fall, then rise.

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Daniel Robert Epstein: It must have been enormously cathartic to write this book.

Jason Leopold: It definitely was. In fact that was something people were telling me before I wrote it and I honestly had no idea what it meant. By writing it; I was forced to take ownership and responsibility of all of these things that Ive done to myself and other people. It taught me a real lesson about responsibility and owning up to mistakes.

DRE: What was it that made you feel you had to write this book?

JL: I wrote this book because something happened to me in terms of my journalism three years ago that made me realize that I have been running. I got in trouble for one of my stories, which is ironic because Im in trouble right now for one of my stories.

DRE: Yeah the Karl Rove story, right?

JL: Yeah. I digress for a second, but the difference between the one I talk about in my book regarding Thomas White and my dealings with Salon versus whats happening now is that Im a different person, I do things differently. When I got into trouble with Salon I realized that I had been, not just running from the truth about myself, but Id been acting like a junkie since Id been sober. I cleaned myself up, I dont do drugs anymore, I dont drink, I dont snort coke, but Im still a junkie and Im still running from the truth. I have yet to own up to anything. I felt that on one hand I really needed to write the book so I could come to terms with that and the other was that I wanted the opportunity to out myself, so to speak, before anyone else did. I felt compelled to just go out and put this book together. At the time I started the book in 2003, I was five years sober and once I finished this I literally felt free. I broke the story of my past. No one can say anything worse than what I've said about myself.

DRE: Its interesting that once you say all this stuff about yourself, it becomes difficult for someone to attack you.

JL: Yeah, but people will try and do it anyway. To be honest it still affects me when somebody will try to use my past as a way to discredit me. But then I look at my book and Im like, I already said this, so its old news. Since writing this book I really feel like my relationships, like with my parents, has improved.

DRE: Are you getting calls from people who are asking you to give quotes for stories about Rove?

JL: Oh yeah, right now its happening and it is because of what I wrote about Thomas White. This is the way the media operates. People are asking me some questions, but for the most part this story was discredited from the moment it was posted online. It was done by Karl Roves people and unfortunately were now still living in a time where instead of championing independent media, there are people out there that still wont trust anything unless its printed in the New York Times or the Washington Post, despite the fact that both of those papers and various other major mainstream outlets, have let people down time and time again.

DRE: Were you worried about the more unsavory people you dealt with in the past hearing about what you wrote about them in the book?

JL: No, whats funny is that the book is that no names have been changed. If anything I just used first names. I was back in New York and I went down to the area I used to hang out in and I started walking by my old haunts and I saw that its totally different. Life has moved on. One of the reasons it was important for me to write this book is because peoples lives have moved on. Even after nine years, walking past that bar, I was incredibly scared which made me realize that Im the one whos been stuck running in place for the last however many years. Im probably nothing in the minds of those unsavory characters.

DRE: What did your wife think of the book?

JL: She said it was strange reading the book because she was really couldnt wait to see what was on the next page even though she lived with all of it. To her it still appeared like a story. Shes incredible. Im still shocked that shes still with me after having gone through all that. She really saved my life.

DRE: You wrote about reconciling with your father, what about your brother and sister?

JL: I totally reconciled with the whole family and it was very bittersweet because that little thing that my father said to me which I put at the end of the book actually happened when I gave my parents a draft of my book. They read it and were very upset. In fact, they didnt want to talk to me ever again. They cooled down and my father called me. We probably spoke for about four hours about everything that we felt. At the end of the conversation, he said, If this book gives you the closure you need, you have my blessing. I couldnt believe he said that because those few words had such an impact on me.

DRE: The news stories that you were breaking were some amazing stuff. Was it ignoring certain things that made people attack you?

JL: Yeah, I definitely got off on the rush. The adrenaline rush, the feeling of power, the breaking news. I thought it was so funny that I was working on a wire service while I was wired. Sometimes I sacrificed fact checking or getting a quote wrong to get the stories out quicker. It was these very immature type errors, simply because I wanted the immediate gratification of seeing my name out there. It really is like a drug and thats why the parallel between cocaine and journalism is so incredible. You get this immediate gratification.

DRE: It seemed like a good chunk of the journalism community was waiting for you to screw up.

JL: Yeah, I was really thinking about that yesterday because of the backlash with the Karl Rove story. I must have really pissed off a lot of people. I think a lot of people were waiting for me to screw up and the reason is because I had an ego. I was so self absorbed and I was so competitive and aggressive that I rubbed people the wrong way. When youre addicted to drugs, people dont matter. I didnt care about anyone or anything but myself. Some of the things that happened to me was definitely payback.

DRE: Greg Palast said that every journalist should read your book. Whats your opinion on that?

JL: I was worried about giving this book out to people, especially other journalists who dont know anything about me while I was revealing this very raw story. When Greg gave me that quote I was blown away and I wasnt even sure if he read the right book. I think what journalists will walk away with is the sense of a flawed human being but at the same time they will see an aggressive journalist who wants to get to the truth. The truth always takes center stage. This is not just a job but a passion. I was talking with Greg about how journalism is almost activism. Im out there trying to get to the truth so people know whats going on. This is not about, whos got the better grades at Harvard and winds up at the Washington Post.

DRE: I do mainly entertainment journalism. I go to a lot of these movie junkets with other online writers. A movie scoop will be mentioned by someone we are interviewing and the other journalists will rush to put it up before everyone else. Or sometimes we will be embargoed on a story and someone just wont care and will rush to put up the story. But they dont fact check it and make it really nice. Thats one of the reasons people say the internet is shabby because people just slap things up without any editorial control. Oftentimes people dont even try and make it into something thats readable. Your book should be given out at journalism school.

JL: Oh wow! Thank you very much for saying that. I really appreciate that.

DRE: You were at the bottom when you were at the top and then at the top when youre at the bottom.

JL: Yeah and by making those mistakes Im able to grow and know how to not make them. I know what it takes to really fuck up and I also know what it takes to do a really good job. I find what you said about people just slapping stuff up interesting because thats almost a selling point now for journalism. Like, get the raw, unfiltered news which is basically just being lazy.

DRE: One of the big problems of the internet is that people have to edit themselves.

JL: Believe me; I am very sympathetic to that because I sometimes have to edit myself. Its very difficult to edit yourself because you cant spot certain things. But I think that with the internet theres still this feeling that because its on the internet its not true. I think the internet is great. As a journalist I dont subscribe to any daily newspapers anymore because I read everything on the internet. Theres a major media revolution going on and people are unaware of it.

DRE: A lot of times I think a lot of times I think journalists on the web dont realize that they have any credibility so they dont need to do things correctly. Whats the next step to make the internet more credible?

JL: Heres the problem I have with the internet. The internet is broken down into these high school cliques, these clubs. There are these various online communities with the journalists who write for them. They all stick together so its a popularity contest and its more about gossiping and opinions and pontificating about things than actually breaking news. Until somebody breaks gigantic news on the internet, its always going to be seen as one step down from the mainstream. I think theres a lot of good editing and writing on the internet but it has to be on par with the tangible publications.

by Daniel Robert Epstein

SG Username: AndersWolleck