IT’S a long way from growing up outside Belfast at the height of the Troubles to holding the most powerful people in the world to account in the White House in Washington DC.
It’s a journey, however, that has never fazed Carryduff native Niall Stanage. In fact, not much seems to faze him at all.
A now regular attendee at West Wing press conferences with US President Donald Trump and members of his administration, the 51-year-old journalist for political news site The Hill has a front row seat for what feels like a transformational moment both in the history of that country, and the wider world.
An era of sometimes fraught but mostly professional relationships between government and media in a US accepting of journalistic scrutiny appears to have ground to a halt, with claims of fake news, biased reporting and social media grandstanding now the norm.
It’s not an environment that intimidates the former Methody pupil.
Born in 1974, Stanage admits Carryduff “was not the epicentre” of violence during the Troubles, but that period still shaped him.
“I think for everybody who grew up in that generation it was the, sort of, defining experience really of childhood,” he says.
“I was in Methody the day the Sean Graham bookmaker’s shooting took place, which is obviously relatively close to there.
“I had a relatively happy childhood, it wasn’t personally traumatic in any kind of way. I did, I guess, fairly well at school and some of the interests that have characterised my life in terms of history and politics were present quite early.
“The obvious example is that for A-Levels I did English, history and politics, which is quite indicative of the interests that have characterised most of my life.”
He remembers his time at school as an enjoyable one, characterised by a respect for teachers that shaped him in a way those at his next alma mater, Oxford University, did not.
While there studying an English degree, he said the college and those who attended it felt “alien” to him.
“The quality of teaching at Methody was very high, I guess I’m going to have to say, even though I’m always reluctant to, that I went on to do English at Oxford.
“The reason I mention that is the actual standard of teaching, the capacity to impart knowledge, was much greater than generally it was at Oxford.
“You of course have people who are real experts in their subject matter, but not so good at imparting it in my opinion.
“I was from a normal background. I’m always wary of appearing to claim impoverishment, which wasn’t the case at all.
“It was like a standard background and at the time I went to Oxford, about 50% of the undergraduate population was from public schools.
“That mentality or the sensibility of the people who grew up in those sort of environments in England was very different from mine, very alien and I did definitely feel out of place there.
“It’s also exacerbated by the fact that I was 18, so one’s social ability to navigate some of those things is much lesser than it would be now.”
One of Stanage’s first forays into the professional world came in the form of freelance work writing arts pieces for The Irish News.
“When I was at college, I was and continue to be interested in music and writing.
“Colin McAlpin, who was the long-time arts editor at The Irish News, and John McGurk were very encouraging of me.
“I think the first feature I ever wrote in journalism was an interview with a guy called Vince Power, who at the time ran the Mean Fiddler organisation in London. He was originally from the south and had moved to London to become a big-time music promoter.
“As time went on I did more stuff in that realm, but Colm and John were very kind to me.
“I had done a week’s work experience in The Irish News. The late Hugh Russell was also very kind to me from a photography point of view.”
The transition from arts and culture pieces towards political writing came naturally, particularly after his big break of a staff job at Hot Press in Dublin, which allowed him to combine his passions.
“I wrote about David Gray, about Martin McGuinness. It’s an interesting spectrum for sure.”
Stanage eventually saw the opportunity to move across the Atlantic, and built a reputation as a tenacious reporter with bylines in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and The Guardian.
A pivotal moment in his impressive career came ahead of the 2008 White House election which saw Barack Obama become the first black US president.
He was assigned to cover Obama’s campaign at a time when Hillary Clinton was widely expected to secure the Democratic nomination, his work earning him the moniker of ‘that Obama guy’, and subsequently publishing a book tracking the Illinois senator’s path to the Oval Office.
“I did a lot of Obama coverage in those early days. You had for the first time a credible, certainly liberal-leaning candidate who spoke with an elevated rhetoric, and a candidate who was the first credible black candidate for the presidency.
“The night that he won the Iowa caucasus was one of the most dramatic nights I’ve seen in American politics because you could feel the boundaries of what was possible change.
“The amount of emotion invested in Obama that year was really quite extraordinary to witness.”
Many would argue that the rhetoric and the boundaries he alludes to sit in very different places now following Donald Trump’s election victories in 2016 and 2024.
One of the most characteristic traits of Trump’s time in office has been the amount of “unexpected” turns that are taken, Stanage says, the unpredictable nature of the man and the administration he runs.
“They [White House press conferences] are a big event, I suppose these days. They are very overcrowded in the room. The Hill has its own allotted seat, but I share that with colleagues of mine.
“Those briefings typically happen once a week, so if there’s no briefing sometimes you are meeting with sources and things. I do a lot of TV stuff.
“Beyond that, often you’re in the White House waiting to see if there will be any impromptu situations. Sometimes spokespeople for the administration will do so-called gaggles, an informal taking of a few questions from journalists.
“The other possibility, the most recent time I got a question in to Trump, was when he was leaving on Marine One from the south lawn of the White House, he will often go down the line talking to journalists.
“Everyone is sort of positioning themselves hoping to get a question and it’s all a bit of a lottery and can be a bit chaotic.
“The advantage for him is that he can simply walk up and down the line and walk away from questions if he chooses to do so.”
Earlier this year, a clip of an interaction between Stanage and Trump’s press secretary Karoline Leavitt went viral after she responded angrily to a question concerning the conduct of US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officers after Renee Good was shot dead in Minneapolis in January.
Leavitt claimed the Carryduff man was “posing as a journalist” and described him as a “left wing hack” after she had asked him his opinion about what had happened to Ms Good, and Stanage stated that he believed she had been killed “recklessly and unjustifiably” by an ICE agent.
While reluctant to talk about that incident in particular, Stanage suggests it and many other examples of tirades towards journalists by the administration are attempts to delegitimise criticism, but are often also utilised by those aligned with Trump for social media clips which target his base.
“That tendency is a tactic that is deployed primarily by the president but replicated by some of his aides or advisers.
“The intention is at least twofold, if not threefold.
“One of the intentions is to simply delegitimise criticism. Another strand in that is the attempt to intimidate not the person who’s asking the question, but people who might be a bit less tenacious or a bit less willing to put themselves in those crosshairs.
“There’s a third element, which I think is maybe underappreciated, of the current administration being partly in the online content creation business.
“From the point of view of their base, there’s an audience for that stuff. I don’t take that stuff personally because it could be me one week and Kaitlan Collins from CNN the next, Rachel Scott from ABC the next and various other people.
@rtenews White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt engaged in a heated exchange with an Irish journalist during a press briefing over the fatal shooting of US citizen Renee Good by an ICE agent in Minnesota. Niall Stanage, a reporter for The Hill newspaper, was asked for his assessment of the incident by Ms Leavitt. He described the ICE officers’ actions as “reckless”. Ms Leavitt proceeded to defend ICE operations, calling Mr Stanage a “left-wing hack”. 📲#whitehouse #journalist #karolineleavitt #us
♬ original sound - RTÉ News
“But when you see, for example, the President of the United States tell a female journalist words to the effect that she should be smiling more while asking a question about Jeffrey Epstein, I don’t see how you could really defend that as appropriate conduct.
“The idea that the media are there to ask searching questions or to hold the powerful to account, I just don’t think Trump accepts that.”
A keen history buff, he argues that attempts to “demonise” traditional media outlets in the US have been ongoing for decades, and predate Trump’s rise to power.
“I don’t want to seem like I’m whining, which sometimes journalists can do, but it’s simply a fact that there has been over decades in this country, not only since Trump’s rise, an attempt to delegitimise the media in various ways and sometimes to demonise the media.
“That process clearly accelerated with Trump. It didn’t begin with him but it accelerated with him.
“Just to give you one example, the term fake news originally meant something completely different. It was when there were content farms, often outside the United States, creating consciously false news as clickbait for profit.
“Trump took that term and has transformed its meaning to essentially mean coverage that he doesn’t like.
“That label and the attitude that goes with it have, I think, made it more difficult for journalists but also have raised stakes in a way.
“I wouldn’t do this for a living if I didn’t believe that it was important for a journalist to stand up for the truth, and for the fact there are objective facts, and for the fact that people in power, of whichever party, should be held to accountable and one should ask the kind of questions that members of the public would have.”
Away from work, the 51-year-old says he enjoys running and keeping fit, and tries to make time for one trip home to Ireland every year.
His mother still lives in Carryduff, and he remarks that she remains happy and healthy and looks forward to his visits home.
Outside of that, however, his life revolves around his work, something that he evidently cares deeply about.
“When I’m not working, I’m oftentimes doing not very much and just trying to decompress.
“I think it’s a worthy thing to have spent my working life doing up to this point.
“It’s been an interesting life to date and we’ll see how it goes.
“I think anyone who works in journalism, particularly print journalism, prioritises having an interesting life over a massively lucrative one. But that’s ok, that’s a reasonable choice to make.”
