Claudia Smith Brinson (l) speaks with Amy Greene, a journalism teacher at Dutch Fork High School The mood in the room February 18 at Columbia College was one of happy anticipation as the seats filled with students, poets, journalists, and friends of Claudia Smith Brinson, an award winning reporter/writer and a Pulitzer Prize finalist.

Brinson, a journalist for 30 years, now a senior lecturer in English at the school, discussed in–depth reporting and read excerpts from her work to a rapt audience. She discussed journalism from the time she began her career to the present day with its move into digital media.

“Reporters are the guardians of our society,” she said. “They pay attention to the why and how things happen. The life of a reporter is a powerful life to live. You get to live so many lives through others.” Brinson left The State

Claudia Smith Brinson

newspaper in 2007 to teach at Columbia College and is the recipient of more than three dozen state and national awards for her

journalism. While at The

State, she and her colleagues were Pulitzer Prize finalists with their Hurricane Hugo coverage. She twice won the Knight Ridder Award of Excellence, that former newspaper chain’s highest award. She was a national writing coach for the paper and wrote a column on social issues, distributed nationwide by the chain, for more than 10 years.

And last week, she shared her stories with a room full of hopeful writers, both the young and naïve as well as the experienced and seasoned.

“Reporters immerse themselves in their stories,” Brinson said. “They have to assure people they will be fair so the people will let them into their lives. They become part of those lives and then have to detach themselves and report the facts.”

She read an excerpt from an in–depth story she did on a woman who was sentenced to prison for the May, 1992 murder of her abusive husband. While awaiting trial the woman was released on bail and lived with several family members including her brother and his roommate.

The roommate and the accused woman ended up becoming lovers and she got pregnant. She didn’t, however, know she was pregnant when she pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and was sentenced to 18 years, Smith Brinson wrote.

The journalist followed the new inmate’s life through the pregnancy and she was there for the baby’s delivery as a very pregnant mother–to–be was escorted to the hospital in chains. She got to know the convicted woman, and she said she asked her how the girl who was once a homecoming queen and cheerleader became an 11th grade dropout, a drug addict, and finally a convicted felon.

“Her mother died when she was young,” Brinson said. “She had no one.”

Then the journalist read an excerpt from the young woman’s story that brought her and several audience members close to tears thinking of a 15–year–old motherless child.

“When Daddy started dating, he'd take off for the weekend, and he’d lock me out of the house. He nailed the windows shut; he padlocked the doors; he told me to find someplace else. I’d try to get in the windows, and I’d be pulling out nails and crying and crying and thinking my Mama was dead, and he was all I had and he didn’t love me."

Clearing her throat and apologizing to the room for her emotions, Brinson said that after all these years, it was still such a sad story.

“I guess I’m not all that detached,” she said with a smile. “So sometimes you can’t isolate yourself from the subject of the story, but you can’t fall in love either. A reporter’s job is to report the facts. Of course you will feel things but you have to look at the big picture and tell the whole story. A reporter’s first obligation is always to the reader.”

When the topic moved to journalism today, Brinson said that the investigative reporter jobs could be a thing of the past.

“I would sometimes spend three months on one story,” she said. “Today the papers are owned by conglomerates that don’t want to invest a quarter of a writer’s yearly salary on one story.”

Many of today’s stories are gleaned through the electronic media, Brinson told her audience.

“The internet has a little bit about a lot of things and broadcasters introduce a story,” she said. “But face time with your subject is incredibly valuable.”

As an example she read an excerpt from a 17–part story she did on the proposed bridge across the upper Santee Swamp. The bridge has long been a controversial topic between the developers and the residents, poor and rich, black and white, Brinson said.

She went to the area and talked to the people who lived there. One man, a small business owner, was described in her first chapter, painting a vivid picture of the people the bridge would affect.

“Ezekiel Bodrick, tall and strong and 83, crushes beer cans with a heavy stick. A washtub full of silvery crumpled aluminum sits beside his Last Stop Convenience Store across the railroad tracks from the ghost town that once was Lone Star.”

That was something that she could never have written without going there and meeting the man herself, she said.

She said the ethics of journalism has changed since she began her career.

“We’d like it to be a noble profession,” she said. “Many reporters are great people who want to make the world a better place. Unfortunately, when surveys are taken, they rate with lawyers and car salesmen in public opinion.”

Brinson went on to explain how one simple word could change the meaning of a sentence.

“If I say ‘she said’ that has a whole different meaning than if I said ‘she claimed’ doesn’t it?”

The lecture gave way to questions and answers and then to a reception where the audience could speak to the writer one by one. Amy Medlock Greene, a Dutch Fork High School journalism teacher and broadcasting advisor, was one of the first to approach her.

Greene said Brinson had agreed to speak to her class, and she was thrilled.

“I can’t wait for my kids to hear her,” Greene said. “She gave a great talk. They would have loved it tonight and will love having her come to the class. When they hear her stories and see examples of her work in action, I know their writing will grow and improve.”

With her last piece of advice for the evening, Brinson once again reiterated the importance of speaking to the reader and getting their attention.

“You have to look for the forgotten people,” she said. “Seek out the poor, the blacks, the women, and the missing people. Write as if your story is a fish hook and let it imbed itself into the reader.”