Pistor, former Post-Dispatch reporter, tried to reuse the city hall pressroom before his unexpected death

By Ted Gest >>

Before former St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter Nick Pistor died of a sudden illness on April 8 at the age of 43, he was in a battle with St. Louis officials about temporarily regaining his old office space.

Pistor, a book author who covered city hall for the newspaper between 2011 and 2016, had planned to research a book about city government based partly on his experience. He reasoned that if the city provided free space to daily newspapers, it should afford that privilege to any legitimate journalist.

At the time of his death, Pistor had not received a substantive response from Mayor Tishaura Jones, who lost a bid for another term in an election the same day Pistor died.

Free space for the city’s then-two daily newspapers goes back decades, says David Nathan, who covered city government for the Globe-Democrat from 1970 to 1974 and is now retired in Maryland.

Nathan recalls that when he first was assigned to the beat, he was given a desk in the outer office of A. J. Cervantes, mayor from 1965 to 1973.

He says this location was “in the middle of much of the action and a lot of private conversations. That was a great idea for a reporter seeking inside information but not a good idea for any Mayor not wanting newspapers to know everything.

“There was one other factor besides too much ‘intimacy’ that eventually led me to be banished to the first floor cubby. I clearly got too comfortable in the thick-carpeted Mayor’s office and, on a couple of occasions after work hours, took off my shoes and walked around in my socks.

”That earned me a well-deserved reprimand directly from the Mayor, and, soon thereafter, I was dispatched to the Siberia of the tiny office on the ultra-busy first floor.”

Nathan says he “looked forward to the solitude of the solo office where I thought I could concentrate on all my stories, that is, all the Pulitzer Prize winning scoops that I envisioned. But it turned out that ‘intimacy’ prevailed there as well. For starters, there was a paper-thin wall between my Globe office and the adjoining Post-Dispatch office, and you could normally hear every phone or in-person conversation.

”Second, the phone lines obviously were tangled and so you, in effect, had a throwback to the old party line phones of yore. On top of that, two of the Post reporters I competed against at city hall were hard of hearing and yelled much of the time.”

(A parade of legendary Post-Dispatch reporters came through during Nathan’s tenure, including Robert Christman, Lou Rose, Phil Sutin and Gerald Boyd, later managing editor of the New York Times.)

Nathan recalls that “a street preacher stationed himself on a folding chair right outside my office, waiting to make a few bucks (sometimes less than $5) conducting simple civil wedding ceremonies right in the hall next to my door. More than once, I left the office and immediately walked into the middle of a down-at-the-heels ceremony.” (Pistor told GJR that impromptu weddings still happen near the Post-Dispatch office.)

Nathan says, “Because the office was in the first floor mainstream, besides a fairly steady hum of constituents and others entering the building, I dealt with people knocking on my door to ask where the preacher was, or the location of other offices. In order to concentrate, I decided to turn out the lights in my office and lock the door.”

Returning to the modern Pistor era, Nathan says “that tiny, nondescript cubby would be the last place I would think someone would aspire to.”

For his part, Pistor said he was so interested in a city hall perch that he would have paid rent. He told St. Louis magazine, “It looks like the Post has not paid rent for decades—and they’re a for-profit company.”

Pistor offered either to share the current Post-Dispatch space or occupy the old Globe-Democrat office, which now is used to store Christmas decorations. He said he would have offered any space he might have been given “to anyone who’s doing journalism.”

Outgoing Mayor Jones referred Pistor’s request for space to the city comptroller, who makes decisions on city hall offices. Pistor had hoped to get a better response from Alderwoman Cara Spencer, who won the mayoral election.

Pistor left the Post-Dispatch to become a full-time author and consultant for CBS’s “48 Hours.” His most recent project took him to New Mexico, where he investigated the deaths of actor Gene Hackman and his wife for CBS. His most recent book, “Shooting Lincoln,” was
released by Hachette in September 2017.

During his time at the newspaper, Pistor was known for uncovering scandals as well as the truth that those in power tried to shield, said former Post-Dispatch reporter Christine Byers. His investigation into St. Louis Recorder of Deeds Sharon Carpenter led to her resignation.

In 2010, Pistor noticed faint stains on the Gateway Arch. His investigation established that the national monument was corroding and suffered from lax maintenance.

Ted Gest covered federal and state courts in St. Louis for the Post-Dispatch between 1972 and 1977. He later covered legal affairs, including the U.S. Supreme Court and other courts nationwide, for U.S. News and World Report magazine between 1981 and 1996. He now edits a daily news digest, Crime and Justice News.

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