An interview with Jacqui Banaszynski, pulitzer prize winner and journalistic trailblazer. Michelle Castleton

1. They were the stories that encouraged wonder. The tales that engrained in her a
deep sense of curiosity, and a passion for the human race. They were the words that
could be inked onto a piece of paper with her 1926 wood stock typewriter and then
inspire people to make a difference, to change a way of thinking, or to spark the
movement to accept a disease that was sweeping the nation. A disease that, for the
most part, people cringed away from.
These were the kinds of stories that drew Jacqui Banaszynski to the art of writing
and reporting. While she is in her fourth decade of work in the journalism field, she
says that her wonder about the world continues to grow, rather than wane, after a
long and successful career.
“The more I let myself be stunned by these things, the more I want to understand
them,” said Banaszynski.
While she has found her passion for people in human interest pieces, she didn’t
always have the opportunity to write about what she finds the most rewarding
stories – the ones that make her want to dive in deeper and constantly learn.
“It became more about an approach to a story rather than actually being assigned to
a story,” she said.
Banaszynski highlighted her journey from writing for small newspapers to traveling
to all seven continents during her keynote speech at the University of Idaho’s fourth
annual Oppenheimer Ethics Symposium in March.
She emphasized that she had been where the many students in the audience were –
a statement that resonated with JAMM senior Whitney Hilliard.
“She addressed topics that I think about frequently when thinking about a future in
journalism,” Hilliard said.
Hilliard is looking forward to a career writing for a newspaper or magazine as a
journalist, and said that she took the most away from Banaszynski’s discussion on
the humanity of journalism and ethics.
“There is a balance that journalists have to find between adhering to ethical
standards and allowing themselves to feel for their subjects,” Hilliard said.
Banaszynski treaded into her outlook on ethical journalism and what she finds to be
the presumption that journalists must put down their values when picking up their
notebooks throughout the symposium.

2. “There is nothing simplistic about ethical journalism because there is nothing
simplistic about humanity,” Banaszynski said. “And journalism is all about
humanity.”
It was through innovation and a drive to expose those stories that brought her to the
doorstep of Dick Hanson and Bert Henningson, a gay couple in the rural farmlands
of Minnesota who were both diagnosed as carriers of the AIDS virus during the
height of the epidemic.
Henningson’s disease seemed to be lying dormant, while Hanson’s was steadily
killing him when Banaszynski approached the men and asked if she could watch
them die, she said.
Banaszynski had been writing about gay issues and AIDS since 1982 and was
actively writing about the gay rights movement in Minneapolis when AIDS hit. She
was welcomed into the home and hospital rooms of the two men for nearly 8
months, resulting in a three-part series titled “Aids in the Heartland.”
The series, which was originally published in the St. Paul pioneer press where she
was a beat reporter, ultimately won the 1988 Pulitzer Prize in feature writing. It is a
story that continues to be read, studied, and continues to help shape public policy
and opinion.
“It rippled into the world and made a difference,” Banaszynski said.
The series publication saw both praise and backlash, as well as having a part in the
amended obituary policy of the Pioneer Press to include unmarried partners as
survivors.
After many years traveling and reporting in the field, Banaszynski is currently the
Knight Chair at the Missouri School of Journalism, where she focuses on molding
young journalists and developing the work of the next generation.
She hopes to continue to train the upcoming generation both in the states and in
emerging democracies, such as Ukraine and Romania.
“My hope is that when you choose it (journalism), you will choose it with that
passion and caring that makes you want to do it, and that makes you want to help
people,” Banaszynski said.