Tom Junod

Tom Junod – Life, Career, and Famous Quotes

Tom Junod is an acclaimed American journalist known for deeply reported long-form essays, award-winning profiles, and his transformative encounter with Fred Rogers. Explore his life, work, philosophy, and memorable quotes.

Introduction

Tom Junod (born April 9, 1958) is a celebrated American journalist whose writing has made a lasting mark on modern magazine journalism. He is perhaps best known for his emotionally resonant long-form essays and profiles, and for the way a single assignment—his 1998 Esquire article on Fred Rogers—reshaped his approach to life and writing. Junod’s work traverses the tensions between darkness and hope, exposing human suffering while searching for meaning, beauty, and redemption. In an age of fast content, his slow, character-driven journalism continues to inspire both readers and writers.

Early Life and Family

Tom Junod was born on April 9, 1958, in Wantagh, New York, on Long Island.

Junod eventually enrolled at the State University of New York at Albany, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts in English in 1980.

Junod’s personal life has been quieter than his public writing. He is married to Janet Junod, and they have a daughter.

Youth and Education

Junod’s early academic path was not linear. He initially enrolled at SUNY Oneonta, but shifted his studies and transferred to Albany, in part following Janet, who had moved there.

At Albany, Junod encountered mentors who encouraged him to find his own voice. He took a fiction writing class and also a history course in a narrative style.

Despite limited training in journalism proper, Junod’s drive to write and his love of reading carried him forward. After college, he spent a period working as a handbag salesman—writing on the side, even on business cards—and gradually built his writing chords.

Career and Achievements

Junod’s professional trajectory spans some of the most respected magazines in American media.

• Early in his career, he wrote for Atlanta Magazine, gaining experience in shorter profiles and feature work.

• He later contributed to Sports Illustrated, Life, and GQ.

• In 1997, Junod followed David Granger from GQ to Esquire, becoming one of its prominent writers.

• In 2016, he joined ESPN, where he works as a senior writer, focusing on deeply reported narratives that often transcend pure sports.

Key Works & Themes

• “The Falling Man” (Esquire, 2003) is perhaps Junod’s most famous essay. It explored the haunting image of a man jumping from the World Trade Center on September 11 and probed the silences surrounding that photograph.

• “Can You Say… Hero?” (1998) is his profile of Fred Rogers, which evolved from a reporting assignment into a deep friendship and a moral turning point in his life.

• “My Mom Couldn’t Cook” (Esquire) won him a James Beard Award.

• He’s won two National Magazine Awards for feature writing (one for a profile of abortion provider John Britton, another for a profile of a rapist in therapy) and has been a finalist multiple times.

• His work has been anthologized in collections like The Best American Magazine Writing, The Best American Sports Writing, and The Best American Crime Writing.

• At ESPN, his stories have included deeply human takes on topics such as Muhammad Ali’s funeral, sports tragedies, and crime investigations.

Over time, Junod’s writing has evolved from probing darkness and moral ambiguity to encouraging a balance between confronting suffering and celebrating goodness.

Historical Milestones & Context

To appreciate Junod’s work, it helps to situate it in the evolution of American magazine journalism and the cultural climate of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

• New Journalism Influence: Junod’s style is in conversation with the tradition of “New Journalism” — blending literary sensibility with reportage. He acknowledges influence from writers like Joan Didion, Tom Wolfe, and others he discovered in his early reading.

• Post-9/11 America: “The Falling Man” came at a moment when the nation was still grappling with trauma, memory, and silence. The essay helped reopen conversation about representation, grief, and the role of journalism in that process.

• Shifts in Magazine Media: Over Junod’s career, magazines have faced disruption from digital media, shrinking print circulations, and evolving audience expectations. Junod’s continued success in long-form writing attests to a sustained appetite for thoughtful, slow journalism even in fast times.

• Transformations in the Journalist’s Role: Junod’s friendship with Rogers and his reflections on journalistic responsibility mirror broader conversations about ethics, empathy, and the human side of reporting.

Legacy and Influence

Tom Junod’s influence is felt in multiple domains:

• For journalists and writers: His work is a vivid example of balancing moral engagement with narrative risk. Many younger writers cite “The Falling Man” or his Fred Rogers piece as inspirational models of how to tell human stories with both honesty and compassion.

• In journalism ethics: Junod’s transparency about regrets (for instance, his profile of Kevin Spacey, in which he engaged in dubious tactics) has opened conversation about accountability. He publicly acknowledged the flaws in that approach and viewed it as a turning point.

• On narrative journalism: He proved that one could sustain long-form, deeply researched narrative in an era of shrinking attention spans.

• Cultural resonance: The movie A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2019), starring Tom Hanks, was inspired by Junod’s Rogers profile and brought attention to how journalism and kindness can coexist.

His legacy is not merely in individual pieces, but in how he modeled a path for journalists to reckon with their own internal conflicts, their moral burden, and the possibility that stories can affirm life as well as expose suffering.

Personality and Talents

Tom Junod’s personality and inner life emerge through both his public writing and reflections about his own process:

• Restless curiosity and moral tension: Many of his essays deal with trauma, memory, and the persistence of evil. He often interrogates moral ambiguity, showing both the limits of journalism and its potential.

• Capacity for change and humility: Junod has acknowledged mistakes, shifted his approach, and allowed relationships (especially with Fred Rogers) to transform his work.

• Emotional and spiritual reflection: His writing often nods toward transcendence, wonder, faith, and the sacredness of human stories.

• Elaborate prose voice: Junod’s writing is acclaimed for its lyrical detail, pacing, and tonal shifts. He is not just an essayist but a craftsman of sentences.

• Persistence and resilience: His career path—writing on business cards, shifting genres, facing backlash—reflects a tenacity in sustaining his voice and principles.

Famous Quotes of Tom Junod

While Junod is less known as a quotationist than as a storyteller, some of his lines are widely cited and reflect his philosophical sensibility. Here are a few notable quotes attributed to him:

1. “I’m shit, I’m a genius, I’m shit, I survive.”
   — His own description of the emotional arc of writing.

2. “Goodness might be as interesting as evil.”
   — A line he attributes to his friendship with Fred Rogers; it became a central insight in his writing transformation.

3. On journalistic duty (as paraphrased from Rogers’ precepts):

   “Journalists are human beings not automatons. Human beings not stenographers. Journalists have a duty to let their outrage show through when they come across injustice. Journalists need to let their compassion show through for other people’s suffering. Journalists need to let their ahhh (wonder) show through when they witness the glory of life… they have as much responsibility to celebrate life and the goodness of it as they do to root out evil.”

4. “What makes us most human … is the possession of a unique and irreducible story, that we take place over time and leave behind our traces.”
   — Junod reflecting on memory, identity, and narrative.

5. “He [Rogers] trusted me. And I think he trusted me because he saw the need in me.”
   — From his reflections on the trust that formed in their friendship.

These quotes capture the tension in his work: between vulnerability and authority, darkness and love, the challenge and promise of storytelling.

Lessons from Tom Junod

From his life and work, readers and writers alike can draw a number of enduring lessons:

1. Be willing to change
   Junod’s transformation after meeting Fred Rogers reminds us that powerful encounters—even ones that begin as assignments—can reshape our inner life and our approach to work.

2. Embrace moral complexity
   His journalism does not shy away from difficult subjects or shadows; instead, it probes them deeply while refusing neat closure.

3. Honor the human in reporting
   Junod’s commitment to treating subjects with dignity and compassion is a counterpoint to detached or purely adversarial journalism.

4. Persistence and patience matter
   His long-form, deeply researched style shows that even in fast media, there is space for slow, thoughtful work.

5. Transparency and humility strengthen trust
   By acknowledging his missteps and evolving, Junod invites readers into a more honest contract between journalist and audience.

Conclusion

Tom Junod’s career is a testament to the power of narrative journalism to wrestle with despair and yet find light. From early struggles and uncertain beginnings to award-winning essays and a transformative friendship with Fred Rogers, Junod has navigated tensions of ethics, faith, storytelling, and human frailty. His work reminds us that great journalism is not just about what is seen or heard—it’s about bearing witness, holding complexity, and bearing compassion. For anyone interested in how journalism can matter, Tom Junod remains a model: a writer who risks depth, wrestles with his own limits, and offers readers not just stories, but meaning.