PD investigative editor John D’Anna: A guy who really knows how to punch up a story

“Behind the Byline” introduces you to those who write stories, shoot photos, design pages and edit the content we deliver in our print editions and on pressdemocrat.com. We’re more than journalists. As you’ll see, we’re also your neighbors with unique backgrounds and experiences who proudly call Sonoma County home.

Today, we introduce you to John D’Anna, our senior news director for investigations and enterprise.

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The Korean phrase embroidered on my black belt says “baekchul boolgool.” At least that’s what I think it says, I don’t really read Korean.

In any case, it means “indomitable spirit,” but it’s even more poetic than that.

Some years ago, while I was competing in an international tournament in Gyeongju, the birthplace of taekwondo, a Korean master looked at my belt.

“This (is) very good,” he told me. “Cut one time, never break. Cut 1,000 times, never break.”

I’ve been practicing martial arts for nearly 40 years. The only thing I’ve done longer, other than breathe, is journalism.

When I was in high school, my dad was stationed in Japan with the Air Force. During festivals we’d see karate students break boards with flying kicks and kendo masters battle each other with bamboo swords. Once, while camping on the beach during a class trip to the historic port of Shimoda, I woke up early, crawled out of my tent and saw several dozen karate-ka practicing their katas on the sand, moving silently in unison at sunrise.

It was the most graceful thing I’d ever seen, and I wanted to be a part of it, even though I was anything but graceful as a teenager.

My parents said no, we moved around too much, and I wouldn’t be able to stick with it. But I never let go of the idea. When I got to college, there was a martial arts club on campus, but I was working my way through school and had neither money nor time. Besides, I had to figure out what I was going to do with my life.

How I landed in journalism is a story for another time, but suffice it to say that once I graduated and got my first paycheck as a reporter, I started scoping out dojos until I found one I liked.

Everything they say about the martial arts is true. It builds discipline, focus and confidence, none of which I had as a young man. It trains you physically and mentally. And it teaches you to embrace your fear. As Muhammad Ali once said, everyone gets butterflies, but the trick is teaching them how to fly in formation.

You learn that the best way to do that is simply to breathe. When you breathe, you slow down time. When you have more time, you have options.

All of which is great preparation for journalism. I’ve been in newsrooms, big and small, when major breaking news hits on deadline. Some people can’t help but lose their minds when minutes matter the most, and frankly it doesn’t help. I once saw a seasoned journalist panic and freeze minutes before deadline on a chaotic election night. Her editor literally pushed her aside and finished writing the story.

If either had been able to breathe, they’d have been able to slow down time. And if they’d had more time, perhaps our paper wouldn’t have erroneously reported on the front page that a certain candidate’s well-known brother had been elected to Congress.

In the dojang (the Korean word for dojo), it’s not unusual to see children and adults in the same class, or black belts training alongside beginners. Instructors (sabunim in Korean) often remind the senior ranks to recognize where other students are in their training and to help them grow in their journey.

Once, as the high rank in class, I was sparring with other black belts, while lower-ranking students practiced on a different part of the floor. Between rounds, I saw a blue belt in his early 20s aggressively sparring with younger, much smaller students to the point where they were clearly afraid. He seemed delighted with his own prowess.

The lead instructor came over and told me to “give him a taste of his own medicine.”

I was bigger and way more experienced and pummeled him with kicks and punches until he finally put his hands up Roberto Duran-style to make it stop.

The instructor then asked him if he understood the lesson. He did.

When my dad was in the Air Force, I thought the Strategic Air Command motto “Peace Through Strength” was kind of an oxymoron. But after experiences like that, along with many years of competition at the highest levels, I get it.

Early in my journalism career, I did a series of stories that got a corrupt police captain indicted on felony charges. I received death threats from his buddies for months afterward.

Later, I went to work for the same paper Don Bolles worked for. If the name is not familiar, he was an investigative reporter who was assassinated with a car bomb in midtown Phoenix in broad daylight in 1976.

Just last week, a reporter in Las Vegas was killed in a suspected hit authorities believe was carried out by a county administrator he’d been investigating.

In today’s climate of hostility toward journalists, it would be easy to be intimidated. But after nearly 40 years of stepping into the ring to face some of the toughest guys in the world, bullies and threats don’t deter me. They just piss me off.

One of the clichés in martial arts movie plots involves avenging ancient wrongs.

While I haven’t yet had to kill the bad guy who killed my instructor, that sense of justice is another way my two chosen disciplines mesh.

At my previous paper, I oversaw the print presentation for a Pulitzer Prize winning project and was part of two breaking news teams that were both Pulitzer finalists.

But some of my proudest moments have come with stories that didn’t win big awards, but gave voice to the voiceless.

An African-American teenager who was scapegoated by police and prosecutors. A young woman who had the raw courage to face down armed and seething racists in her hometown. An elderly woman who was abandoned as a child and wanted to know who her birth parents were before she died. A 10-year-old boy who was exploited by a Hollywood game show and carried the guilt of not winning the money he needed for college into adulthood.

There is a saying that the best martial arts instructors don’t teach their students. This implies a one-way, top-down relationship that often brings egos into the equation. Instead, the instructor shares their knowledge in the hope that their students will one day surpass them in rank and skill. They rejoice in their students’ successes.

In my role as an editor here at The Press Democrat, I get to work with some amazingly talented journalists who have been doing this almost as long as I have and still have the same passion I do. I love being able to learn from them every day.

But I also get to work with journalists who are just starting out in their careers.

Not long ago I worked with a young colleague on a story that exposed an historic wrong and resulted in legislation to correct it. It was a story that gave voice to the voiceless, and it was a proud moment for both of us, as well as for our newsroom.

Journalism is a tough business. A lot of people my age have told me that, given the industry’s shifting economic footing, I need to come up with a Plan B. But for the life of me I can’t think of what that would be. There’s nothing I’d rather do, and moments like that young reporter’s story are why.

Sure, there are rough days.

But if you are going to do this — or anything — for a career, that’s probably about 40 years.

With holidays and vacations, you’ll work about 250 days a year, which adds up to 10,000 days. Which means that one bad day is just 1/10,000th of your career. Not a big deal, so shake it off and get back in the ring.

As the master said, cut one time, never break. Cut 1,000 times, never break.

John D’Anna is The Press Democrat’s senior news director for investigations and enterprise. Follow him on Twitter @azgreenday.