From Journalist to True Crime Writer: AC Interviews Mara Leveritt from HBO's Revelations

I learned of Mara Leveritt from Revelations, an HBO documentary regarding the West Memphis Three (I will be writing more about The West Memphis Three in the coming weeks and months). "One of the only journalists in Arkansas who questioned the verdict in this case," according the Revelations and this is what drew me to her. I wanted to know more about Mara as a journalist as well as an author of two True Crime books.

AC: Please give a brief background of how you got into journalism.

ML: I was married, a young mother...it was a choice between going into journalism or a major in English and it occurred to me I just like moving a bit more than I thought a classroom would allow me to do. The out and about aspect of journalism was appealing and so I opted to major in journalism and minor in English in school and went directly from there to my first reporting job at one of the two daily papers. In Little Rock I ended up working at both of the daily papers along the way and finally becoming a editor and the associate editor and senior editor and now contributing editor to the Arkansas Times and Alternative Weekly in Little Rock. (Mara began writing for the Arkansas Democrat, one of Little Rock's two daily papers. She then joined the other daily, The Arkansas Gazette, (the oldest newspaper west of the Mississippi). In 1983, The Arkansas Democrat won a newspaper war and the papers merged, becoming today's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. But by that time, she had moved to the Arkansas Times, an alternate weekly that began in 1974)

AC: Are you an investigative reporter?

ML: That's what they call me (this brings out laughter in both Mara and myself). I never choose that title, but sometimes newspaper sticks one on you and that's it and it suits me well.

AC: My next question was going to be did you always want to do investigative reporting or was it something you got into, but you kind of answered when you said they pinned it on you. So, how did they end up pinning the title "investigative reporter" on you?