New York Times journalist Kurt Streeter on ‘the fine art of hanging out’ (live at SFJ)

I lean into my strengths as a person. I think that it’s really important in this kind of work, no matter what you’re doing in journalism, to kind of understand your strengths. And I’m not a super pushy person. I’m not somebody who’s going to go in with sharp elbows — I’d probably be a terrible investigative reporter. But, I am somebody that does hold empathy in high regard, and I really try to understand people and have a feel for them. I really want to know them.

The story is really not a boxing story. I never conceived of it [or] thought of it as a boxing story. Boxing’s obviously a really central part of it, and that’s a really interesting aspect of that kind of life in L.A. This is a father-daughter story. It’s a story of a dad seeking redemption, a daughter working toward her dad’s redemption, understanding the stakes. And the fact that there was a lot at stake then made the story. You’re always looking for that as a super powerful energy source in a story.

I’d been known for very strong 60-inch stories, but to have a series and to know how to end on a cliffhanger and how to ask questions that will lead the reader into basically wanting more, that stuff, really, that came from the prodding and pushing and cajoling along the way from [Los Angeles Times editor] Rick [Meyer], who I worked with very, very closely on this piece, and then from [late L.A. Times editor and 1972 Nieman Fellow] John [Carroll] sort of overseeing it. I can’t tell you how lucky that is. That’s beyond anything I could ever imagine, and it meant everything for my career. 

My relationship with Rick Meyer was standing strong even today, and I’ve always considered him to be my main mentor and somebody who really taught me and many others really how to write. And so his fingerprints are really all over this story. I think I’m a pretty decent writer — sometimes terrible, sometimes decent, and sometimes really good. But definitely not as consistent as I would like. So to have somebody like Rick Meyer, especially early in career as a guide, those lessons, they stick with me to this day, and I try to pass them along when I can to other younger reporters now.

If I can, I’m looking for the one character that’s going to jump off the page. The one character ideally that’s really just a ‘holy shit’ kind of character. That’s my ideal. But that could morph into two characters. Like Seniesa and Joe, I considered Seniesa to be Character 1, Joe to be Character 1A. It could be, say, a family could be one character, I’ve done stories like that. 

Almost all my best stories have been just told through pretty much the one person or about one person and their lives. But not really just about them, much more than that. The story about the sisters in New York and Sister Mary Kay [“Will Sister Mary Kay Turn Out the Lights?”] — that’s a dying convent, literally dying. When the last nun dies — and their median age is like 87, 88 — then this order of nuns is going to cease to exist after 220 years or so in New York, and really helping build New York. But I really told that story through Mary Kay, and I didn’t harp too much on, ‘Oh, this order is dying.’ I let that kind of float a little bit in the background. Certainly I mentioned it, but the broader theme then that I took up was endings, death, dying, closure, because Sister Mary Kay is at the very end, to the point where she’s told me very upfront she wants to die. She’s totally ready. There’s a certain gracefulness about that, the acceptance of ending and how to do that well, that I thought, she just really exemplifies that. So she was just an amazing character.

I don’t try to stay purely fly-on-the-wall, just act like I’m not here. I mean, I try to blend in the background as absolutely much as possible. But it’s impossible to, as you’re forming these relationships. They can’t ignore you, and that’s just the reality. You’re there. I might just stay on the side. If somebody asks me something, I might say something just really quickly and then kind of maybe reposition myself to try to be more or less obviously there. But there’s almost no way around that, I think, especially at this depth.