Sara Benincasa is not a fraud. She's a journalist.

The writer was loathe to call herself the j-word, but realized "not every journalist is a hard-nosed news reporter."

Photo courtesy Sara Benincasa.

Sara Benincasa is a writer and performer based in Chicago and New Jersey, and, it would seem, an unlikely candidate for Leading Questions. She has written jokes for puppets and humans alike on Mystery Science Theater 3000, and is the author of four books, two fiction and two non-fiction. Her writing has been published by Glamour, CNN, Women's Health, and elsewhere.

She has hosted podcasts and guested on ones that include WTF with Marc Maron, Meditative Story, Bad with Money, and New Jersey is the World. And as she tells it, her most important artistic achievement so far has been playing an exhausted criminal defense attorney who gets yelled at by Captain Olivia Benson on an episode of Law & Order: SVU.

Benincasa is also a dear friend to Depth Perception contributor Parker Molloy, who is honored to have been able to catch her via email for a round of Leading Questions. (Yes, she qualifies as a journalist) —Parker Molloy

Why did you become a journalist?

I confess I was a little startled when I read this question. In the past several years I’ve focused so much on essays, TV and film writing, novels and memoir, and copywriting (the sexiest gig of all). I felt like I’d be a fraud if I called myself a journalist, and then I remembered that I do have some clips that point to at least a bit of experience in the field. I also remembered that not every journalist is a hard-nosed news reporter.

Anyway, that’s my preamble.

I got into journalism because I genuinely enjoyed reading news and news analysis from a very young age. It was a way to bond with my parents and grandparents, and they all encouraged it. 

As a child, I started by reading Newsweek and Time at my grandparents' house (yes, I was VERY cool). I also read their newspapers, and became a fan of Erma Bombeck, Art Buchwald, and, obviously, the famed journalists Calvin and Hobbes. [ed. note: Calvin and Hobbes are a cartoon boy and stuffed tiger. They may be philosophers, but they are definitely not journalists.]

I’d get my hands on a Vogue or Vanity Fair and read these incredibly well-written puff pieces about some aging heiress and her new clothing line, and I’d eat it up. My first ambition was to write books, and these people seemed like characters in a fairy tale.

I was a big fan of Sassy magazine in middle school, which is probably when I first paid attention to music journalism and interviews with artists and activists. It was also the first time I read a periodical in which each writer seemed to have a specific, well-honed voice.

Early in high school, I began to read Molly Ivins, and just loved her. I started contributing to our hometown newspaper. I think it was mostly letters to the editor and opinion pieces back then. I was also an editor at our school newspaper, and my first major at Emerson College was.… drumroll on an ancient, dusty drum please…. PRINT JOURNALISM. 

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I found that AP style was fine to read but not fun to write. I also realized I wasn’t interested in chasing leads on hard-news stories. Not only did I switch to a more general writing major, I also dropped out. I landed at Warren Wilson College, where I managed to eke out a Creative Writing degree. Later, I taught in the AmeriCorps program and then got my M.A. in Teaching at Columbia. 

In New York, I worked at a library resource magazine, a B2B magazine for the pharmaceutical industry, a few different blogs and, eventually, MTV News as a web reporter for the 2008 Choose or Lose Street Team. It was a lot of DIY blogging and early web video, subsidized by the Knight Foundation. There were a couple on-air hits, which was a lot of fun and also extremely anxiety-inducing. My Jersey accent came out because I was so nervous on TRL. I sounded like I had just emerged from under the boardwalk, which I now regard as a badge of honor.

But I was never interested in doing broadcast journalism as a career, though I popped up as a talking head on a few cable shows over the years. I spent many years doing stand-up comedy, and I didn't appear as a journalist but as a bit of comic relief. Sometimes I was actually funny, and sometimes I was... not. But it gave me even more respect for actual on-camera journalists. It seemed like so much pressure to have to sound smart AND look good AND remember which camera to look into. 

I find acting on camera to be way less stressful. Somebody else writes the lines, and it isn’t me, it’s a character.

What story of yours are you proudest of?

I wrote a piece in my high school newspaper about the death of a kid I knew a little, from a free summer program we both attended. I’d had a big crush on him, but so did all the other girls, and he was so out of my league that I never would’ve asked him out. 

He had been a star athlete, a community volunteer, and incredibly popular and good-looking. He had been firmly fixed in my head as an ideal type of individual. He was like a charming '90s teen movie character. He died by suicide via self-immolation. It shocked me to the core, because I believed that people like him were the happy ones.

That was the first time I understood that I could build a false life for someone else in my own mind, and that I really had no idea what was going on behind what struck me as a cheery façade. The story haunted me for a long time, and made it into my first book, Agorafabulous!: Dispatches From My Bedroom. But long before that, I wrote about him in our high school newspaper.

Years later, a classmate I respected a lot told me he kept that piece pinned up in his closet so he could read it when he needed to. That meant so much to me. It taught me that just as other people’s writing had deeply moved me, so could my own words move friends or acquaintances. I hoped that one day I could reach strangers that way, too.

What story of yours do you most regret?

I wrote a stupid thing for the Guardian shitting on Gilmore Girls while still honestly praising the acting and the writing. It was internally contradictory and also clearly written by somebody who needed more therapy. It should’ve just been called “I have issues with my mother and can’t relate to a show where the mom and daughter are friends, so that show is not for me and I need to get sober also, goodbye.” 

I find my story embarrassing in retrospect. I certainly appreciated the paycheck, and the work from the staff over there. I enjoy the Guardian. I was just a dumbass. And of fucking course now I have friends who wrote on the show, and it makes me want to burrow into the earth and hide, imagining them ever reading it (which begs the question of why I’m talking about it here, but I had a night coffee and the truth tumbles out).

What’s the best journalistic career advice you ever received?

Don’t become obsessed with the theater of horse-race politics. Keep your mind on the actual issues. That was from a teacher at a free summer camp I went to in high school. I have absolutely ignored this advice at times when it would’ve been great for me to heed it. The older I get, the more valuable it becomes.

I’ve also heard this in different forms over the years: read great journalism, even if it’s not in your usual lane. I’ve taken that to heart and I pass it on with a little twist. When I teach any kind of writing – usually personal essay, memoir or novel writing – I tell the students to read great sports writing, especially if they’re not into sports. If you find a writer who can make you care about a game you’ll never watch or an athlete you’ve never heard of, you’ve found a writing role model.

What is the worst journalistic career advice you’ve ever received?

I truly cannot recall anyone offering up particularly bad advice to me regarding journalism. It must've happened at some point.

What is a widely accepted journalistic rule or norm that you hate?

I don’t know why they make all the news anchors talk with that same cadence. What is that about? Why did we decide that is the pattern of speech they must use? Let the girls get loose! Let me hear a regional accent! Give me conversational reportage!

What was the most indulgent media event you've ever attended?

When I was still doing stand-up, I got booked to perform at some event run by Hendricks Gin and The Onion. I think it was because I was a former intern at The Onion. Wait, did I get onstage or was I just there as a guest? I can’t remember, because alcoholism. Anyway, they made us free cocktails involving ice cream and so much Hendricks. And Hendricks converted the little club into an enchanted forest. 

It was the first time I ever went to a marketing thing in the realm of the immersive experience. I was terrified of crowds in tight spaces but I got to drink at almost any comedy event, which made it easier and more fun. I fucking loved it.

What’s one app, tool, or service that you can’t do your work without?

I remember the summer I finally fell in love with the color-coded system on my calendar app. My schedule for the MST3K writers room was one color. My job at a nonprofit was another. Anything related to going to therapy, taking stretch breaks, etc. was another color. 12-step meetings were another color. Anyway, I have so many more categories now, and I cherish it. 

What makes you think journalism is doomed?

I don’t think it’s doomed. There will always be people who work their asses off and risk their lives to tell the truth to an audience that may ignore them.

What makes you feel hopeful for the future of journalism?

The people who work their asses off and risk their lives to tell the truth to an audience that may ignore them. The Committee to Protect Journalists, the ACLU, and Amnesty International also give me hope. Hyperlocal journalism like Block Club Chicago gives me hope.

Further reading and viewing from Sara Benincasa

• “Invite fellow humans to read Saratonin” (Saratonin, 2/19/24)

• Real Artists Have Day Jobs (And Other Awesome Things They Don't Teach You in School) (Harper Collins, 2016)

• Agorafabulous!: Dispatches from My Bedroom (Harper Collins, 2013)

• “Episode 296 - Sara Benincasa” (WTF with Marc Maron, 7/12/12)