SuperTopo Editor Goes to Prison

The second reason: my dad can’t help being an editor. Without his guidance, I would have never published the 20 SuperTopo books or the 1000’s of reviews on OutdoorGearLab and TechGearLab. As this article confirms, he can’t help but share his passion for writing and publishing. He gives people confidence and skills they never had.

I couldn’t be more proud, Dad.

“I kept my distance at first,” Richardson says. “I’d see Steve in meetings, discussing stories.” Richardson noticed how McNamara communicated with Michael Harris, a drug kingpin and founder of the gangsta rap label Death Row Records — and one of the newspaper’s early reporters. “They used to argue like cats and dogs,” Richardson says. “I could hear it over my machines. But they never stayed mad at each other. I said to myself, ‘Y’all can disagree but ya’ll can still sit and have a laugh together?’ I liked that magic.

“I was very resistant to Steve’s editing, to his tampering with my work of art,” Stiner adds, chuckling. “Steve does not throw his weight, or say how much experience he has, or argue with you and try to change your opinion. He invites you in. He finds out where you are and he moves to you. He finds a way — maybe with humor — to pose an alternative to you, and then you come up with the solution. It’s kind of hard not to like him.”

We are presenting an opportunity to work in a certain environment,” he says, “an active, mixed-race environment, with deadlines, with decision-making power, and with individual and collective responsibility.”

That is not small stuff. But, for the prisoners, the newsroom experience cuts even deeper, and McNamara has much to do with it. McNamara, Lindsey noticed, was nonjudgmental, didn’t brag, “dressed as a regular Joe,” and took the time necessary to earn their respect.

“Most of us, early on in the newsroom, were lifers,” Lindsey continues. “You are a castoff, just a prisoner, you have no meaning. To Steve, each one of us had great value, and he demonstrated concern for us.”