Elissa Nelson interviewed her mother, Margaret Nelson Brinkhaus, who has been a freelance journalist since before Elissa was born, working for a variety of magazines and newspapers including People, Newsweek, and USA Today.
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Elissa: As a kid I never knew how special—unusual—it was that my mom had a job that she loved and found so fulfilling. My whole life, you’ve been talking about the stories you’re covering, whether it was the Hormel strike in Austin, Minnesota in 1985, John Thompson losing his arms in a farm accident in North Dakota in 1992, or Prince getting married in 1996. It wasn’t until I grew up that I realized how rare that is, for someone to love their work and share it with their family because they find it interesting. I also never realized as a kid how lucky I am to have you as a role model—for a lot of reasons, but partly because your pride and joy in your work has raised my expectations for my own work. How did you end up in this career?
Margaret: That’s the question? How did I end up in this career?
Elissa: Is that a weird question?
Margaret: When I was sixteen I was hired to write the news twice a week for my little hometown, Tomah, Wisconsin, for the LaCrosse Tribune. I got paid ten cents a column inch, and I got a byline! And I thought it was really a fun thing to see my interpretation of things—it was straight journalism reporting, and I thought that was very cool, but it was my reporting. So I went to college and I majored in political science, I think I have a minor in journalism, and I thought about going to law school, but I was really kind of tired of school, and there was all this family turmoil, my father had been killed and everything, so I got a call from the editor for this fabulous new paper in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, and he wanted to hire me. So I decided to do that. There were a lot of interruptions—I got married, we were in the Peace Corps—but I really liked being a journalist—I thought it was important. Journalism is important, it’s important in a democracy to have accurate reporting. Right now we have all this partisanship, particularly on the conservative side, and I think that’s too bad, but I believe in a marketplace of ideas, a range of perspectives so people make up their own minds. So that was part of it, but the other part of it is this ongoing education; it’s like having a front seat at the parade. I get to ask the questions I want to ask, and because of the publications I’ve worked for, I’ve had a lot of access to the kinds of stories I’d want to write and the people I’d like to meet.
Elissa: What are some of your favorite stories you’ve covered?
Margaret: To some degree, my favorite story is often the most recent one, it kind of changes depending on what’s going on. But there are a number of people who made a huge impression on me over the years, there are stories which kind of haunt you—so favorite—favorite is one thing, but then there would be other categories of things. Like people I most admire… for example, we did the first national story on Jacob Wetterling when he disappeared (1989). He was right around Emily’s age [Elissa’s younger sister, born 1979], so I remember that very very clearly, and I’ve had a lot of connection over the years with his mother. I admire her tremendously. I remember those early hours right after he was abducted and how in shock she was, but over time she’s been able to have a huge impact on how we deal with missing children and pedophiles, a nationwide impact, starting out in her little kitchen in St. Joseph, Minnesota. So I wouldn’t say that was my favorite story but it was monumental.
