Tony Messenger: How One Story Snowballed into a Series That Changed Missouri Law

By Suzette Martinez Standring
Director Emeritus

Newsroom reporters and columnists may see themselves when NSNC Member and metro columnist Tony Messenger of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch will share how paying attention, listening, and strong storytelling led to a series of columns that won him the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Commentary. He will be a featured speaker at the NSNC’s Virtual Conference on April 16-17, 2021.

His journey began with an almost “one-off” column about how the Missouri prison system forced prisoners to pay for their own incarceration, and if unable, to stay longer in prison and to be billed additionally.

Tony said, “I’ve never had a story that I’ve covered before where one story so quickly led to a follow-up, and then another, and then another. In this case, it was just a simple situation that was happening to poor people all over the state (and nation, really), and it just took somebody to listen to their stories and put the pieces together to realize what an injustice this was.”

Everyday journalists who “put pieces together” will be empowered at the NSNC’s April 16-17, 2021, Virtual Conference when Tony will share:* The key to opening the floodgates to interviews and more investigation;* How his columns produced reaction from all elements of the political spectrum;* How Tony gained public support despite the prisoners he featured having criminal records;* How reporters must look at stories from a fresh angle, and more.For example, Tony gives this piece of advice, “When covering criminal justice, get away from just talking to police and prosecutors. It’s a complex system with many problems and the press fails when it only tells the dominant narrative pushed by those trying to put people in jail.”Tony spotlighted the gross injustice of debtors’ prison and changed Missouri law. We all seek to make a difference.

Come to his talk and find out how to work smarter and how to write award-winning stories that could transform society.

Read Tony Messenger’s work and register for the NSNC Virtual Conference HERE.

Tony Messenger of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch

For bold columns that exposed the malfeasance and injustice of forcing poor rural Missourians charged with misdemeanor crimes to pay unaffordable fines or be sent to jail.