welcome to Brazos Matters.

I'm Jay Socol.

My first profession was in the news industry.

I am a Gen Xer who was raised on a traditional media diet of three commercial TV stations and PBS, morning radio newscasts, a couple of daily newspapers.

So, of course, no internet, no smartphones.

But clearly that is not where our society is today.

Traditional media is disappearing.

Our ability to spot misinformation and disinformation is not yet fully formed, and we are increasingly choosing to get our news and our information from social media and podcasts.

And yet, there are plenty of college students who want to write and report.

They want to tell stories, and they want to learn audio and video technologies to tell those stories.

The recently resurrected journalism program at Texas A&M is on the upswing in that regard.

Our recent guest, professor of practice Mariano Castillo, and, his former student, Avery Foster, talked about their real world assignment that took them to Laredo recently, to report on toxic emissions that are harming residents there.

So today, we're continuing our conversation about the state of journalism by visiting with someone who has been a journalist and a storyteller at the national level, Claire St.

Amant is our guest.

Claire was a field producer for 48 hours, on CBS, also a contributor to the 60 minutes, also on CBS.

She currently hosts her own true crime podcast called Final Days on Earth.

And earlier this year, she released a memoir called Killer Story The Truth Behind True Crime.

Television.

And she also teaches a podcasting class at Baylor University's Department of Journalism.

So, Claire, thank you so much for being here.

I appreciate it.

Thanks for having me.

Of course.

So let's start with this.

Why are you on the Texas A&M campus today?

Well, I've been invited to speak to journalism students about my career, starting in local media, going all the way up to the national news and also my book, Killer Story.

So where did you do local news first?

I was at People Newspapers in Dallas, Texas, a chain of suburban weeklies that has been in Dallas for over 30 years.

And so I started out there as just a general assignment reporter.

And so you were probably attending city council meetings here and here and here and here.

Right?

Absolutely.

Yes.

I was city council meetings, school board meetings.

I was covering, you know, cops and courts, anything and everything that happened in those small communities, I was there.

How good was it to cut your teeth in that kind of environment?

It was fantastic.

One of my, sayings that I tell young journalists about the best first job you can get in journalism is any job in journalism, and people newspapers was a fantastic place to start to learn the craft and to really take what I had gotten from my student media experience at Baylor, where I worked at the lariat and put it into, you know, all day, every day.

And it was remarkably similar to what I did as a student journalist.

And I always find that to be such an encouraging message to pass along that if you're doing it now as a student journalist, you can absolutely do it professionally.

It's just on a bigger scale.

You're just doing it more often and you're covering, you know, increasingly more geography.

But it's it's absolutely the same skills.

And you are a professional journalist as soon as you're getting paid to do it right.

So even in student media making minimum wage, you're you're a professional journalist.

So how old were you when you were doing that?

When I was at people newspapers.

Yes.

So I would have been 24.

So I went to the Peace Corps.

After Baylor, I graduated from Baylor, and then I went to the Peace Corps in Ukraine, actually, of all places.

Right.

So I had no idea how much that would become part of the, national discussion.

Sure.

But yes, I was in Ukraine.

I taught English as a foreign language.

And while I was there, I wrote an op ed for the Wall Street Journal about the Peace Corps is called Not Your Father's Peace Corps.

It was on the 50th anniversary of the Peace Corps and how it had changed and evolved, and the goal was always to work full time in journalism and I knew that to to separate myself from everyone else who wanted to be a writer.

I should probably have, you know, some experience that that would make make be worthy of telling stories for a living.

And so I thought going to the Peace Corps and getting to see more of the world would, would be a great way to, to start my career.

Yeah, that sounds fantastic.

Well, we are catching you before you actually start talking to classes here at A&M.

And I have a list of classes that I think you're going to hit.

And so I wanted to know what specifically you might plan to share with students in each of these classes.

So I'm going to go down my list hoping that it's still an accurate list.

But the first one is mobile journalism, which includes podcasting and true crime.

What kinds of things do you intend to share with that group?

So I'm going to do like an overview of how I started in journalism and where I ended up, because I've really hit a lot of the major media forms.

I started out newspapers.

I also worked for magazine D magazine that owned the chain people newspapers.

And then I went to a website called Culture Map that started in Houston, and I helped launch the Dallas site.

And so very much mobile journalism, I was, you know, always on the go.

And then from there going into television where I was a field producer and, you know, covering everything most of the time on my own with, you know, my own little field kit and then podcasting.

So I've, I feel like I have a lot to offer.

Those students.

Yeah.

For sure.

A couple others on the list, American mass media, also strategic communications, which I find interesting.

How do you hope to relate to those students?

Yeah.

So I have a speech for them that's called The Business of Journalism.

And I talk about how journalism really is a moneymaking enterprise, often not for the people creating the content.

But if you can figure out how to own a piece of the content, that's whenever you can have a piece of the pie.

And that's something that has been a very interesting discovery for me, realizing, where does the money flow in journalism and how are so many people, able to get very rich off journalism and many people cannot even have a living wage.

So there's a big difference, depending on where you fall in the, org chart and you know what your contract says and all sorts of things.

And I think that everyone should know what they're really signing in those in those contracts, you know, whenever you sign away, all your intellectual property, it's it is a choice.

And for a long time, I made that choice to do that because I wanted to work at these places that were amazing media companies, that were legacy media companies.

You know, CBS news is never going to cut the producers in on the revenue stream.

They they could never keep the doors open and do what they do.

But deciding that I wanted to make content in a different way and actually own the stories that I told.

But through my podcast, through my book, through television shows that I've created, that was a big turn in my career.

And I think it is, a viable path for, for many people.

But you have to be a risk taker, and you have to have that drive to, to come up with your own ideas and stories.

But what do you share messages like that?

Do students hear it and and think, well, then I would like to skip very much those initial steps and go straight to owning my own IP.

Yeah.

And being able to benefit, financially from that.

I have heard that before.

I tell everyone you should spend at least five years, if not ten, in the business, learning how it's done before you try to go make your own, because it's not an easy thing to do.

And even as someone who, you know, I started out, in 2010 working for people newspapers, and I didn't leave CBS until 2022.

And so I, I had seen lots of different types of newsroom from start up websites all the way to the national media before I decided, let me see if I can do this on my own.

And I took all of those lessons into it, and it was still extremely difficult.

And I had, you know, some very lean years in, in building this, but investing in myself and wanting to have a future where I have a greater control of the content that I create and what happens with it and how it's monetized is something that I'm really glad that I stepped out on the ledge and and went for it.

So I think another class you're speaking to is media writing.

What kind of message to those students?

Yeah.

So that's my fearless reporting, presentation.

And it's really about how taking risks can give you the career of your dreams.

And you have to, you know, tell any story that's worth telling.

You're going to have to challenge authority.

You're going to have to, you know, talk truth to power.

You're going to have to do things that make a lot of people uncomfortable.

And that's what great journalism does, whether you're doing it in true crime or politics or any type of investigative journalism, you have to be willing to ask the hard questions.

You have to be willing to go places that other people wouldn't go physically and metaphorically.

And that's something that I think the fearless ness of, you know, a great reporter is is something I hope to, to try to impress upon them, like how to tap into that in themselves.

And I, you know, there's lots of research that shows that many people, the the regrets that they have at the end of their career are about the risks they didn't take.

Right?

Not the ones that they did correct.

And so you should bet on yourself.

You should go for it and know that the path that you're taking it won't be easy, but you'll be glad at the end that you chose to to to take those risks.

Because you'll never know until you try if things are going to work out or not.

In the worst thing you can have is that what if at the end of the day, or you know, the end of the year, so you got to really hone in on what's important to you and then and then go for it.

So that sounds like the the key advice that you leave students with.

What do you think this is?

This is, you know, the world according to Claire.

Yeah.

What do you think the state of journalism is today?

So I'm I'm a sunny, side up kind of person.

I always see the opportunity and the positive side of things.

So I'm really not in the camp of most journalists today that that think that things are in dire straits.

I see a lot of barriers to entry that have gone down.

I think it's a great time to be a journalist.

I think you have to have thick skin.

You have to be willing to take risks.

But if you're willing to do that, I think the opportunities are endless.

And there's no media company in the world that has too many good stories.

And as long as your story hunting, you will always find a job right?

I think that telling great stories will never go out of business.

Was there a piece of advice that you received somewhere along the way in your journalism career that has stuck with you?

Absolutely, yes.

A career can't love you back.

I think that is the best advice that I, I've ever received about, how to frame and build your your life because I'm someone who loves my career very much so.

But recognizing that it will never love me back is so important because I have to pour into people who will love me back.

And I have to remember that at the end of the day, you know who's going to be holding me tight?

It's not going to be CBS news.

You know, you need to really invest in those personal relationships and make sure that you're there for the people that really count, that you're irreplaceable, too.

When I left CBS news, they replace me immediately, right?

There's no replacement for me as a mom, as a wife, as a sister, as a friend.

You know that those are the people that are really.

They're glad that I'm there every day.

And they would know if I was gone.

It would leave a real void.

And so I always encourage people absolutely.

love your career, but put it in its proper place.

You mean CBS didn't find you, special?

As it turns out, in the end, you know, in the end, you're just like.

And, you know, another producer to them and that's that's business.

The business, you know, that's the absolute.

Yeah.

Standard.

So so Texas A&M is rebuilding its journalism department from scratch.

And so here's a what if, scenario for you.

Probably not even fair to ask.

But we're going to pretend here if you were in charge of something like that, rebuilding a journalism department from scratch, what kind of people would you hire?

What would you make sure is taught, and what are some other things you might spend money on?

Oh, what a fascinating question.

So I would definitely hire people who had worked in media recently.

I would want to hire people who had held positions across the spectrum.

I think I would look for people who had television experience, people who had podcast experience, people who had writing for the web experience.

There's so many great news websites that don't have the print product that, you know, we, you and I grew up with and expect, but there's not that same consideration.

I think that I would want someone who, had kind of worn that mobile journalist hat and done been like a one man band and done all the things themselves on the road, because that really is what most young journalists are expected to do.

You get the title of DJ Digital Journalist or the Mojo mobile journalist, and you're sent out with a kit and you have your field camera, you have mics, you're doing sound, you're doing audio, you're doing video.

And then guess what?

You're writing the story.

You're putting the package together.

You're doing it all in the field on your laptop.

Because what used to be four people's jobs is now one person's job, right?

And you have to be prepared to do all of it.

So I would really put an emphasis on this variety of skill sets and make sure that you can put a whole story together for podcast, a podcast version, a television version, a print version, a web version that you're looking to do that with virtually every story.

Because I think that as these media companies evolve and as they're coming into their own now, they're trying to to do it on all platforms.

So you want to be able to compete in this, you know, modern workforce.

You can't just be like, oh, I, I talked to the teleprompter and I sit in the chair.

You know, those jobs while they exist, they're not entry level.

Right.

And they might be going away, you know.

So you want to be prepared for what's next.

And I think having that Arsenal of skills is is really important.

Do you know how cool it would be to tell somebody that you're a mojo major?

Yeah.

Do you know how awesome that sounds?

I really think that that that is the future that and we're there.

You know, I think to have like a single track to say, oh, I'm a broadcast journalism major.

Well guess what?

You're going to be making podcasts as a broadcast journalist.

You know, that's not that's not a separate major.

It should really all be included.

Let me do a quick reintroduction.

If you just tuned in, I'm Jay Socol, you're listening to Brazos Matters, and my guest is Claire St.

Amant, a former TV true crime producer who's now an author, podcaster and journalism professor and Baylor University.

Okay, so we talked a little bit about your start in the industry, but tell me more about that career arc that led you to kind of seemingly the top of the profession, you know, the whole the 48 hours of 60 minutes and so forth.

And part two of the question, did you willingly leave that industry or did the industry kind of leave you?

So I like to say I quit before they could fire me so that I left on my own terms.

Jay.

Yeah.

But it was, you know, it was very unexpected turn for me to end up in television.

I in college did not own a television.

I went to the Peace Corps.

I thought I was going to be a dyed in the wool print journalist working for a legacy newspaper was like my ten year plan.

That's really what I wanted to do.

But when you graduate in 2008, the economy was in the tank and newspapers were shedding staff and people with ten years experience were competing for the jobs that that I was thought that, you know, I would be applying for.

Right.

It was just flooded with the pool of candidates.

And so I was very glad to find a job at people newspapers and actually have a full time job in journalism.

I had PR offers, I had other types of jobs that I was just trying to figure out.

How could I, you know, make a living as this young college graduate and I knew that if I started in journalism, I wouldn't regret it.

Right.

And so I turned down much higher salaries, starting salaries to take the job at people newspapers as a general assignment reporter.

And yeah, I never expected to work in television.

Certainly not that four years from there I would be working as a producer for CBS news.

I wouldn't have believed you if you told me that.

That's the path.

But I followed stories.

Every turn in my career has been a great story, and that has led to a job offer that I never saw coming.

And so from People Newspapers, I ended up getting an offer from Culture Map when they were coming from Houston to Dallas to start a Dallas site, and they offered me a position as their managing editor.

And so I was curious about that and wanted to, you know, make sure that I would have time to do what was really important to me, which was investigative journalism.

And so I carved out that in my contract that I would have time to do investigative journalists pieces, that I could pick my own.

And as long as I had time to write it, you know, it was up to me to manage that.

But but they would they would publish it.

And so they agreed.

And I took that job.

And within two years I had published a story called Did Michelle Williams Get Away With murder?

And it was investigative three part series about a faked home invasion.

And that got the attention of all the major true crime shows.

So 48 hours, Dateline 2020 all started blowing up my phone and my email, wanting to talk about that story, and I ended up going with 48 hours feeling the best.

With about them.

I've got the full story in my book, but I ultimately decided that CBS news was the most trustworthy of the three shows, and I felt like they would treat me right, with with that story, because local journalists having an investigative murder story, very often the story is that the national media steals it from them.

They don't credit them.

Right?

Yeah.

They just take it.

They take their reporting, they repackage it as their own.

But CBS news actually said, look, we want to partner with you on this.

We want to have you on the episode as a as a consultant.

And that felt pretty good.

Is as good as I could feel, you know, about that kind of relationship.

And so I started out, you know, on air with them talking as a local reporter on the ground.

And then from there, once I saw the budgets and the talent in the national media, I said, how do I hitch my wagon to this horse?

And I just started pitching them true crime stories.

I said, you like that one?

I got another one for you.

And the next story I pitched them was, you know, Eric Williams, the justice of the peace, turned rogue who started picking off prosecutors in Texas and, you know, became a serial killer.

And so that ended up being the next story that I did for 48 hours.

And pretty soon I had a contract with them as a field producer.

And, followed another great story to to 60 minutes that I pitched to them about a different serial killer, out in LA and a Texas Ranger who was getting confessions from them.

And, you know, it's always been story driven for me.

So you're building your street cred that way.

And you say that you decided to get out before you were fired.

So how did you make your way to podcasting?

So I started podcasting while I was still at CBS.

Okay.

I had, you know, been a consumer of podcasts for a long time.

I started out with serial Dirty John up and vanished, all the classics.

Right.

The true crime investigative limited series shows were were my Bread and butter and it was actually one of those cold LinkedIn approaches.

Someone reached out to me about starting a podcast, a true crime podcast, saying, you know, we're looking for women to host true crime podcasts because women are actually the biggest consumer of true crime content, but they often aren't the voices behind it.

And, you know, that opened my eyes.

I didn't end up going with that specific opportunity, but it opened my eyes to hosting a true crime podcast and, you know, lots of twists and turns there.

But I end up launching Final Days on Earth with Claire Emma in 2021.

And so that while I was still at CBS at the time I had, there were talks that I might do it through CBS, but we couldn't really come to terms.

And so I ended up getting an exception in my contract to do it separately.

And so I started doing that while I was still at CBS, and it was really satisfying, really rewarding, really interesting and challenging and all the things, because it was totally new.

I'd never made a podcast before, and I taught myself on GarageBand and asked friends who had podcasts for advice about the kind of equipment to buy and and how to edit, and, you know, how to do sound mixing and everything.

And that ended up being a whole new journey that I really enjoyed having that entrepreneurial angle to journalism and having ownership of the stories.

And so, yeah, that, that, that got me thinking.

How could I own more of my own stories?

And I know that true crime is a genre that is, you know, somewhere around number two, number three, number four, depending on the year that the surveys occur.

You know, behind, I think comedy and sports and, yeah, flip flop in places.

But did did the world need another true crime podcast and how is yours different.

Yeah.

So absolutely the world needs more true crime podcasts.

There's so many cases that are unsolved.

To me, that's that's my passion.

The cases without resolution and that are too messy and complicated for traditional hour of television or a segment on the local news.

And so podcasts allow you to go down all the roads to look at all the possibilities, to talk to anyone and everyone, and to get as close to the truth as, as you can.

Do the law enforcement hate that, though, so some of them, like me, believe it or not.

Jay.

Okay, but a lot of them hate me.

It's true.

And I, I just look for the best story.

The final days on Earth universe starts with a dead body and you have questions of was this an accident?

Was this a suicide or was this murder?

And then from there we go into all the the backstory of the victim and how they came to be in this position.

And I want to show that people are more than the worst day of their life, than the last day of their life.

And so I want to show who they were before this crime happened and what is missing, you know, now that they're gone.

And then I want to try to get as many answers as possible.

I haven't solved a murder yet, Jay, on my podcast, but I'm trying.

And I think that at the end I've done three seasons of final days on Earth, deep dives on cold cases, and I think at the end of each season I've taken the investigation further than it was before.

And I've answered questions that people, investigators, the family no one knew or, you know, that these answers were out there.

And so that that's been satisfying to me.

I'm not completely satisfied because I want to know.

I want to know who you know, it was this a murder?

Was this suicide, was this accident definitively?

And if it was a murder, who committed it?

And and are they they being held to account?

But you're doing it through honest journalism.

Yes.

Without the sensational, you know, infusion of of, those sorts of elements.

Right?

I mean, I go out in the field, I go to where these crimes occurred.

I talked to as many people as possible.

I put out on my website, if you are a witness to this case, if you have any information on this case, contact me.

I get contacted by people all over the world and and all the time about these cases, and they come forward with information.

Sometimes it's themselves, sometimes they're suggesting I talk to other people and it's been a crowdsourced investigation every time.

And it's it's really been just fascinating to see.

And, yeah, I mean, it's it's something that I think the podcast media and really allows you to do in a way that that others don't.

Okay, I don't like this because I have so many more questions for you, but we're running out of time in about the last minute or so.

Tell people about your podcast, how to find it, and tell people about your book and how to find that.

Yes, so final days on earth is everywhere.

You listen to podcasts, you can type it into your feed and find it.

And my first three seasons, you can binge them right now and they're each on a different case.

And then, since in 2025, I published my memoir, Killer Story The Truth Behind True Crime Television, and it is my personal journey into and out of network true crime TV.

And I it's a tell all book.

I say the person I tell on the most is myself.

And so earlier when I said I quit before they could fire me, it's because I was willing to to go after the stories that even my own company wasn't sure we should tell, because I would trust my own North Star of story judgment.

And if I had determined that this was a story that we should tell, I would go to all lengths to get it on the air.

And so I take you into my headspace and I talk about all the challenges that I had.

And many times, you know, it's running up against office politics.

And, you know, I just made sure that the stories that, needed to be told got told.

Claire St.

Amant, thank you so much for taking time.

During what I know is going to be a busy day for you.

So really appreciate you being here.

Thanks for having me on, Jay.

I enjoyed it.

Of course.

Brazos matters is a production of Aggieland's Public Radio 90.9.

KAMU FM., a member of Texas A&M University's Division of Community Engagement.

Our show was engineered by Hector Nino and edited by Matt Dittman Research by KAMU student content contributor Macy.

Litterst.

all Brazos Matters episodes are available on YouTube and on your favorite podcast platform, also on the KAMU website.

Thank you so much for watching or for listening.

I'm Jay Socol.

Hope you have a wonderful day!