Valerie Bauerlein: Go Somewhere, Talk With People and Pay Close Attention

During Alex Murdaugh’s murder trial, Valerie Bauerlein kept her eyes on the people outside the cameras’ frame.

From a seat three rows from the jury, she studied jurors’ faces as they listened to testimony. She watched the Murdaugh family, tracked who attended each day and paid close attention when the courtroom broke into conversation. Who were the lawyers talking to? Who was leaving? Was anyone crying?

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Bauerlein knew she could revisit the testimony through Court TV recordings. Her seat inside the courtroom gave her access to something viewers could not see.

“But what I couldn’t replicate was the vibe, and especially the jury,” Bauerlein said. “That was the one thing that we could see that everyone watching could not see, so my job was to watch the jury, what’s happening with their faces.”

The courtroom itself added to the human drama. Bauerlein sat in a narrow room dating to 1820, beneath 20-foot ceilings. Judge Clifton Newman presided from an elevated bench, speaking in a low voice.

“It’s almost like … earthly judgment being rendered up there, and then you have these actors on the stage,” Bauerlein said. “It’s very theatrical. You have the prosecution and the defense, and then the Greek chorus over here, and the jury to my left.”

Her instinct to look beyond the central figure and remain curious about everyone in the room reflects a principle Bauerlein has carried throughout more than three decades as a reporter.

“One of the things that hasn’t changed is just showing up,” she said.

Now, Bauerlein is bringing that commitment to close observation, careful listening and showing up back to Duke, where her own path began. A Duke alumna and longtime national affairs reporter for The Wall Street Journal, Bauerlein joins the Sanford School faculty with the DeWitt Wallace Center for Media & Democracy after a career spent chronicling small-town America and Southern politics, economics and culture.

She is the author of the bestselling 2024 book The Devil at His Elbow: Alex Murdaugh and the Fall of a Southern Dynasty. She also hosts “Camp Swamp Road,” an investigative podcast series for the Journal that became a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

Three Doors Opened by Terry Sanford

Bauerlein’s return to Duke traces back to a telephone call she received as a high school student in Wilmington. The phone rang one afternoon after school, and she picked up the landline in her family’s kitchen.

“Hold for Senator Sanford,” the caller told her.

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Terry Sanford, then representing North Carolina in the U.S. Senate, had called to congratulate Bauerlein on receiving a scholarship to represent the state through an exchange program in Japan.

“I had never been on a plane, much less to another country,” Bauerlein said.

The experience took her first to Washington, where she spent a week learning about the Senate and visiting Sanford’s office. She then traveled to Tokyo, visited Japan’s legislature and lived with a family in a small town.

“It was so mind-expanding for me,” she said.

When Bauerlein returned home, she helped start a program for exchange students at her high school and became more involved in her community. The experience also shaped her college search.

Duke felt financially out of reach. Bauerlein was the middle of three daughters preparing for college within four years, and both of her parents worked in public service. She applied anyway and received an invitation to interview for the B. N. Duke Scholarship, a program that Sanford had supported to bring more students from North Carolina and South Carolina to Duke.

The scholarship made it possible for Bauerlein to attend.

“Just that broadening experience, that ability to widen your frame of what’s possible, it was just life-changing both times,” she said.

An Unexpected Path to Journalism

At Duke, Bauerlein studied English and French and considered attending law school. She never wrote for The Chronicle and did not believe she fit the image of the hard-nosed journalist shaped by the Watergate era.

“I did not think I had what it took to be a journalist,” she said.

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After graduating in 1993, Bauerlein returned to Japan to teach English through the Japan Exchange and Teaching Program. A year later, she moved back into her parents’ home without a clear plan. Her job search included an “exciting opportunity” advertised in the local newspaper that turned out to involve selling vacuum cleaners door to door.

A few days later, Bauerlein attended a wedding and shared the experience with an acquaintance. The woman had worked as an editor at The Daily Tar Heel and recognized qualities in Bauerlein that she had not yet recognized in herself.

“You have a sense of curiosity about the world, and you can write,” Bauerlein recalled the woman telling her. “You should be a journalist.”

Within a week, the woman called Bauerlein about an opening at The Shelby Star. Bauerlein had no reporting clips to send the editor. She persuaded him to meet with her on a Saturday, drove five hours to Shelby and secured a two-month job paying $300 a week.

She quickly discovered that she had found the right work.

“The first time I got to just … go talk to somebody and ask them questions and write it up, I was like, man, this is for me,” Bauerlein said.

Finding Larger Stories Across the South

That temporary position launched a career that took Bauerlein from the cops beat at the Winston-Salem Journal to the South Carolina legislature for The State and Congress for The News & Observer. At the Journal, she covered the beverage and snack industry from Atlanta and followed major regional banks through years of acquisitions and the 2008 financial crisis.

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Her reporting eventually expanded across the South. She has covered South Carolina’s presidential primaries since 2008 and reported from communities confronting Hurricane Katrina, the mass shooting at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston and the condominium collapse in Surfside, Florida. Her features have found larger stories in NASCAR, roller coasters, beauty pageants and Waffle House.

Those assignments strengthened Bauerlein’s belief that seemingly familiar places can reveal something larger about culture, politics and the economy. They also deepened her appreciation for Sanford’s influence on North Carolina. She credits Sanford and other state leaders with investing in infrastructure, supporting the growth of Research Triangle Park and building on the strengths of institutions such as Duke.

Joining the faculty of the school that bears his name marks another turning point.

“This is essentially the third time that Terry Sanford’s … opened a massive door for me,” Bauerlein said. “And part of the reason why I felt like I should probably walk through it.”

From the Field to the Classroom

In the classroom, Bauerlein plans to emphasize the fundamentals that have guided her work even as journalism has changed around her. When she began reporting in Shelby, the newsroom did not have a cell phone. Her second job came with a pager, and reporters at her third shared a cell phone during night shifts.

Today, anyone with a phone carries a camera, computer and publishing platform. Bauerlein sees opportunities for students who move easily among print, video, audio and social media. She also wants them to understand that every format still requires careful reporting.

“If you don’t have the reporting, the writing is very hard,” she said. “You’ve got to have the goods.”

Her faith in that work begins with her faith in people. Bauerlein has covered hurricanes, mass shootings, murder trials and other moments of profound loss. Those experiences have left her attentive to the people who help their communities endure.

“We may not love humanity, but, you know, wow, do I ever love humans,” she said. “I think that I’ve found, in every single case, really good people doing good work, and trying hard, and taking risks to do the right thing.”

That belief will send Bauerlein and her students beyond the classroom in search of the details, voices and experiences that explain how people live.

“Get out of the Triangle and go talk to people,” Bauerlein said. “They’ll surprise you, and there’s stories everywhere."