The Derelict Gunslinger

Muckraking Nirvana

Working at WXOK was a turning in my sobriety. My out-sized ego was severely damaged by the tumble from News Director, ace reporter and talk show host at Baton Rouge’s leading radio station to a job as token white boy. Instead of feeling gratitude for a career reprieve, I began fabricating an excuse for my presence at the station. I planned to tell former colleagues that the job was an expression of my commitment to civil rights.

The opportunity to promulgate the fiction presented itself at an NAACP news conference. For the first time since my failed attempt to succeed as a skid row bum I was about to come face-to-face with reporters that I had avoided since my day of reckoning. The prospect of seeing them was so unnerving that I sat in a hotel parking lot for several minutes summoning up the courage to go inside.

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Entering the lobby, I immediately ran into Associated Press bureau chief, Charles Layton, who greeted me with a smile and a handshake.“Where have you been, John?” he asked. “I haven’t seen you for awhile.” My answer was so stunning I thought it was the voice of another person.

“WJBO fired me for being a drunk,” I blurted out. “I’m working at WXOK, going to AA and trying to get things back together.” Had I actually made this humbling admission to someone? I could not believe my own words. But Charlie took the sting out of my confession.“That’s great. I knew you were having problems. I hope things work out.” It was no big deal. Like most Baton Rouge reporters, he knew about my drinking.

Disclosing my AA membership violates the fellowship’s tradition of anonymity in print and broadcasting. However, my sobriety and career are so closely interwoven it’s nonsensical to use semantics in describing how I evolved as a reporter.

After a year in AA, in fact, my former boss heard that I was sober and rehired me. My dual role as News Director and talk show host was filled, so I was named Director of Special Projects. It was while searching for projects that were special that I stumbled into investigative reporting. The craft of uncovering secrets was ready-made for my greatest talent. I was a bullshit artist.

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In August, 1972, I experienced a mucking thrill that has not been matched since. Crossing the I-10 Causeway in southeast Alabama on the way home from covering the Republican National Convention in Miami, I heard a news story on New Orleans radio station WWL that almost caused me to veer off the road into Mobile Bay.

Louisiana Attorney General William Guste announced the indictments of three former bank executives and the Executive Director of a state government agency. His announcement included a statement that set my butt atwitter. “I want to thank reporter John Camp of WJBO in Baton Rouge, who first called public attention to the subject matter resulting in today’s indictments.” The criminal charges were a direct result of a bribery scheme that I exposed eight weeks earlier.

This was my first muckraking endorphin eruption. It caused a buzz that was comparable to the discovery of a potion that made me taller, handsomer, tougher and almost killed me. But by the time I reached Baton Rouge three hours later, my initial excitement had begun to subside.

It dawned on me that as an ostensible teller of truth and protector of the public till, I was responsible for the public floggings of four men who did me no harm. When I stopped drinking and started hanging around a Twelve Step fellowship, I underwent a conscience transplant. Damaging reputations of people that I knew only in the abstract contradicted my high-tone sober objectives. The journalistic ecstasy I felt in smiting scoundrels seemed duplicitous for a guy recently destined to end up on the funny farm, in prison, dead, or all the above.

An ex-drunk put my concerns in perspective. He was my AA “sponsor,” the person who listened to me whine and offered advice based on his own experiences. “You didn’t cause those people’s problems. They caused their own difficulties,” he said. At the same time, he gave me the best advice I have ever received as an investigative reporter. “Be damn certain your truth is the real truth.”

The distinction is paramount to investigative reporting. Finding truth is its only purpose. And because truth is often imprecise, it can be altered, compromised or ignored completely. Interpretations depend on the honesty, prejudices and wisdom of the reporter.