Johnny Dodd returns to CU and shares his writing and interviewing passions with students

Johnny Dodd (Photo by Drew Johnson)

The journalism career of Johnny Dodd ('85) has taken him through several unforgettable journeys, but when it comes down to actually writing a story, the People magazine writer said his advertising background inspires his passion for writing leads.

"I love writing leads; there's poetry in good leads," said Dodd, 41. "They are poetic hooks to snag the reader into the story, and it's the one chance you get to really flex a little muscle."

Dodd returned to SJMC in March as a Hearst Professional-in-Residence to talk to several journalism classes about his 10 years at People.

Dodd was born in Tennessee and grew up in Kansas. He transferred to CU after an unsuccessful attempt to study engineering at Auburn University in Alabama. An advertising major at the School, Dodd said he aimed to follow in the footsteps of Darrin Stephens, Samantha's advertising copywriter husband on the TV series "Bewitched."

Ad agencies wanted writing samples, so Dodd began to write sports features for the Colorado Daily. He also spent a few months as a copy editor for Soldier of Fortune magazine.

His experience in print journalism aided his switch from advertising to print. "I could come to work with sandals and no socks; it appealed to me, and I never looked back," he said.

After graduation, Dodd spent a year bicycling through South Pacific islands, then moved to Seattle and worked for a chain of weekly newspapers. It was "sort of like grad school" because he got expert editing, he said. Dodd began stringing for People, then moved to the San Francisco Bay Area and became a contract writer for People. After a six-month temporary position at the magazine's L.A. bureau, he was hired as a staff writer.

Dodd said he has interviewed many celebrities but prefers to do human-interest stories.

"Coaxing out stories from people who've been interviewed hundreds of times" isn't his favorite kind of work, and he said he's "often cut loose" to do interesting international stories. He has traveled to Siberia and all over Japan and Mexico for People.

One of his first big stories for People was about a California couple, Jim and Jennifer Stolpa, who were lost in a snowstorm. Reporters surrounded them, but because they already had an agent working on a movie deal, his People connection got him an interview. Dodd persuaded them to let him into their hospital room as they were preparing for surgery to remove frostbitten tissue. He spent several days with the couple, and while their agent wouldn't let them talk about what was going through their minds during their dilemma, he nevertheless got the story.

"If you sit with people long enough, they'll eventually cough it up," he told the students.

Another big story Dodd covered for People was the 1992 tale of a young man whose decomposed body was found by moose hunters in Alaska. He said he was the first to talk to the parents of Chris McCandless, the young man whose body was found four months after he entered the wilderness alone.

Dodd said he had flown by helicopter to the site where McCandless had spent his last days, wrote the story and was ready to leave when he learned that the man's parents were arriving. Dodd persuaded them to talk to him. However, he said the editors of Outside, a magazine that he occasionally worked for, chose another free-lancer with mountaineering experience, Jon Krakauer, to write the story. Krakauer gives Dodd credit in his book "Into the Wild," Dodd noted.

Dodd said his story about the adventures of Tom Whittaker, a Welsh-born, world-class mountain climber whose lower leg was removed after an accident with a drunken driver in 1979, turned into a co-written book, "Higher Purpose: The Heroic Story of the First Disabled Man to Conquer Everest."

Dodd said he is working on his second book, "Mozart and the Whale," a love story about two autistic savants – Jerry Newport and Mary Meinel. It is scheduled to be published this fall by Simon & Schuster to coincide with the release of a movie about the couple starring Josh Hartnett.

Dodd said his next project will be a screenplay based on a story he reported recently. "I consider myself more of a writer than a reporter," he said.

Writing for People, Dodd said, is sometimes "a very Zen" experience. He said he has spent many all-nighters composing stories, only to see them reduced to a few paragraphs. He told students it's not unlike the work of Buddhist monks who create intricate sand paintings that are swept away after they're finished.

"We call it being Peopled," he said. But, he added, "I love writing leads. It's almost like they can have the rest of the story."

Stories in the magazine are some of the most carefully reported and edited stories published today, he said. They are fact-checked, read by "layers of editors" and every sentence vetted by lawyers, he said.

Dodd's advice to students is to find the type of subjects they like to cover and take the time to learn how to do it well. "If you like what you're doing, the universe will kind of fall into place," he said. "Media are now so interwoven in everybody's life," he said. "(The media play) a greater role in culture these days. The students now are a lot savvier, and we were very savvy."

Dodd is married to Diana, an acupuncturist, and the father of two small children, Christian and Ella. Because of that, he said he travels less.

Dodd said he still recommends journalism for anyone, even those not interested in newswriting.

"Journalism is the greatest rounded thing to do for anything; reporting helps you process the world, which is swimming with facts."

He said he continues to tackle his career in a passionate manner, advising students to find what they truly love.

"If you like people and like asking stupid questions and don't mind getting laughed at, it's a wonderful job," he said.