So What Do You Do, Keija Minor, Brides Editor in Chief?

'My biggest goal is I want to stay true to the core brand'

Valerie Berrios is a published author and senior content manager with nearly two decades of experience in digital publishing, including roles at Audible, Disney Streaming, Everyday Health, and Mediabistro. She specializes in content strategy, editorial operations, and international content launches.

7 min read • Originally published December 18, 2013 / Updated March 19, 2026

By Valerie Berrios

@valerieberrios

7 min read • Originally published December 18, 2013 / Updated March 19, 2026

As the first woman of color to be the top editor at a Condé Nast publication—and someone who spent her early career in corporate law—Brides editor in chief Keija Minor knows a thing or two about breaking ground. “I left law because I was not passionate about it,” she says. It turned out, publishing was the industry she was much more excited about. “I realized the part of law that I liked was working with these small creative media companies,” she explains.

But the timing wasn’t quite right. It was around 2001, and the dot-com bubble had burst, so “things got very sad in New York,” she says. Here’s how Minor followed her heart, overcame some early struggles (including a significant pay cut) and landed a top spot at one of the largest magazine publishers in the country.

Name: Keija Minor
Position: Editor in chief, Brides
Resume: Worked in corporate law for four years before landing an internship at startup magazine Travel Savvy, where she worked her way up to editor in chief after about three years. Next came a managing editor position at Niche Media’s L.A. Confidential, followed by a promotion to editor of Gotham. She eventually left that role to assist in the launch of Uptown magazine’s six regional editions. In 2012, she was promoted from executive editor of Brides to EIC.
Birthdate: April 24
Hometown: Washington, D.C.
Education: University of Massachusetts and Howard University School of Law
Marital status: Single
Media mentor: Anna Wintour
Best career advice received: If you love what you do, success will come.
Last book read: I just started Double Down, by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann
Guilty pleasure: Handbags and last-minute travel
Twitter handle: @keijaminor

How did you make the move from corporate law to magazines?

There is literally a book called What Can You Do With a Law Degree? that was sticking out on a shelf at Barnes & Noble, and I was like, “Oh my gosh, it’s a sign!” So I decided basically by the end of year two [of my job as a lawyer] that I needed to look for something else, and then it took a year to save a year’s worth of mortgage payments, with my theory being that I may be broke and not be able to eat, but I won’t be homeless.

So I practiced for four years and then when I had a year’s worth of mortgage payments, I quit. I flooded the industry with my resume and no one would hire me, largely because, well, I had no experience. And also because no one thought that I would go from having an assistant to basically being an assistant, except for this small travel magazine called Travel Savvy, which had just started. And I sent them my resume—this sounds so old school, but I sent it via fax and overnight delivery and then I think by messenger.

One of the founders [of the startup] called me and he was like, “All right, come in already. I’ve gotten your resume three times.” And I went in and the only position they had was a lifestyle internship and I was like, “I’ll take it!” And I actually started taking [women’s magazine] classes at Mediabistro. Once I made up my mind that that’s what I wanted to do, it was like this huge burden was lifted off my shoulders. I had five minutes of regret about two minutes after I left the firm.

I remember it netted out to being an 85 percent pay cut. And I remember my parents, when I said, “I got a job,” they were like,

“What?” and I said, “Well, it’s not really a job; it’s an internship,” and it was like crickets on the other line. And they were like, “Okay.” What I didn’t know until years later is that my father hung up the phone and turned to my mother and said, “I think we should clean out the basement; I think Keija’s coming home.” I didn’t, of course.

No, you worked your way up to editor in chief! Then you moved on to Niche Media and later helped launch regional editions of Uptown, a luxury lifestyle magazine for African Americans. Why was bridal your next step?

The opportunity came up at Condé Nast, and it’s a situation where people were like, “Why would you want to go from being an editor in chief to an executive editor?” and it was because of the opportunity to work at Condé. At first I was like, okay, I haven’t worked in bridal, and what I found even just going through the interview process and doing my edit test is that I fell in love with the category, and then became obsessed, because it really is the ultimate women’s magazine.

It’s food, travel, fashion, beauty, entertaining; it’s like every single one of those elements that I had worked on in a different capacity, whether at Gotham or at Uptown or even at Travel Savvy. It was all coming together at Brides. So I became executive editor here, and on my one-year anniversary I became editor in chief.

And you’re the first African American to hold a top title at a Condé Nast publication. Is that something you think about?

I think the industry has been changing generally just over the years, as all of corporate America has been changing, to some degree, to reflect more women and more diversity. I think with the title at Condé, you know, it’s fun to be the first. It’s exciting to be the first in any sort of category, and it’s an honor. But I don’t wake up every day thinking, “Okay, you’re the first black woman to hold this title.” I think about, “What are you going to do to move the magazine forward?” At the end of the day, yes, I will have been the first, but I also want to be the woman who knocks it out of the park as an editor.

But I mean certainly for someone like my grandmother, who has seen women and black folks come so far in her lifetime, it was nice to talk to her about it. And she did take the announcement into her water aerobics class. [laughs]

We’ve all heard about Anna Wintour’s relatively new role as artistic director at Condé. Has she provided you with any input?

It’s been fantastic for me just to have someone to be able to bounce ideas off of. The woman embodies editorial excellence. Just being able to call her and ask her thoughts on things has been tremendously helpful. I mean she really is a champion of editors and editorial principles, and it’s nice to have that.

So then you find her approachable?

She is actually very easy to talk to. Once you know her. I know, you see her… at a fashion show in the front row in her sunglasses, and I know that maybe people assume that she’s one way, but she’s actually… quite approachable. And she’s really funny, too. I think she’s very clear in her vision, and I just find that inspiring.

But she’s got another 18 brands in this building so I’m sure that her relationship with every editor is different. I think she’s great as a sounding board. If I ask about a photographer [for a cover shoot]… it seems like she knows every person in the industry, from photographers to designers, their strengths. She’s great at bringing people together.

**So what is your vision for Brides?**

My biggest goal with Brides is I want to stay true to the core brand. I mean, the magazine is 79 years old. But I also want to make sure that it stays modern and current and speaks to our girls, and as their best friend, not as their mother. We want to be an updated, fresh version of what this brand stands for. So that’s really important to me, that we’re speaking to them in a contemporary voice.

What advice do you have for freelancers interested in pitching the magazine?

The best way [to pitch] is via email, and in a way that shows why you are the person to write this piece. And it really needs to be for a specific section. The pitch that I get often that’s hard to work with is, “I recently went to Jamaica and would love to write something for you,” or “I really love bridal and would love to write for you.” As opposed to giving us a specific story idea and explaining why you’re the best person to write it.

One of the sections that we’ve added in the last year is the front-of-book essay. It’s a fun section and anyone who has a first-person interesting-marriage or relationship or wedding-planning story should definitely consider pitching for that section. In the issue that’s out now, it’s about a couple who had a secret wedding first, so by the time they had their public wedding for all their friends and family, they were actually already married. And we’ve had another essay about a girl’s journey to find her dress. So that’s a great opportunity for a freelancer. Those are all written out of house.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Topics:

Advice From the Pros, Be Inspired, Interviews

Advice From the Pros

So What Do You Do, Toan Lam, ‘Chief Inspirator’ for Social Activism Site GoInspireGo.com?

Authentic stories + social media = social activism, says Toan

By Valerie Berrios

@valerieberrios

8 min read • Originally published February 5, 2014 / Updated March 19, 2026

By Valerie Berrios

@valerieberrios

8 min read • Originally published February 5, 2014 / Updated March 19, 2026

Even as a child, Toan Lam knew he wanted to tell stories. He grew up in a rough neighborhood in South Sacramento, Calif., and used reading and writing as an outlet—and eventually a passport out of dodge. He worked as a TV reporter for several years before deciding he wanted to tell only inspiring stories of people doing great things that might compel others to do the same. He founded Go Inspire Go (GIG) to accomplish this mission. The nonprofit social-activism site started out as a single YouTube page and, in four years, has grown to 90 volunteers—including members from some of the top tech companies in Silicon Valley. They have documented and shared over 60 charitable acts and counting.

“People think to be involved in philanthropy, you have to be rich, old, snotty,” says Lam. “And no, you can be a philanthroper and you can be little Phoebe Russell, a five-year-old kid who wants to help people in the food bank.”

Lam calls himself the “chief inspirator” for GIG, but adds that “we all can be inspirators. We all have the power to do something both big and small.” And he hopes to extend his passion project’s reach. He is currently in talks with a few networks about developing a TV show based on his idea of inspiring the masses through everyday heroes.

Name: Toan Lam
Position: Founder, Go Inspire Go; university instructor
Resume: Started TV news reporting in 2001 for an ABC affiliate in Wausau, Wis. Also worked as a reporter for an NBC station in Los Angeles; an NBC station in Midland, Texas; and then a CBS station in Fresno, Calif. While a reporter at an independent station in San Francisco, Lam got the opportunity to report for a worldwide syndicated show on Asian-American lifestyles called Pacific Fusion. Afterward, he hosted and reported for a PBS show called California Heartland. In 2009, he founded GIG. And today also teaches multimedia at the Academy of Art and blogging for social change at the University of San Francisco.
Birthdate: Jan. 22, 1978
Hometown: Sacramento, Calif.
Education: University of San Francisco
Marital status: Single
Media mentor: Oprah, Arianna Huffington and “storytelling king” Steve Hartman
Best career advice received: Follow your passion. It’s easier said than done. Find a way to make it work.
Last book read: The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle
Twitter handle: @GoInspireGo

Why did you leave TV reporting to pursue social activism?

I believe that everything in your life is like scattered dots that you throw behind you and you don’t know what all these experiences mean, and one day you’re able to connect the dots. I saw all these stories of everyday people doing awesome things for other people, and I researched and I was like, whoa, there are inspiring sites and people, and they share other people’s articles. But what if I had the audacity to dream bigger and use my power— which I believe is connecting people through storytelling—for good? And so, you know, I didn’t want to do car chases and murders and political scandals anymore.

Wow, what if, instead of bringing that into people’s living rooms, what if I brought good news into people’s homes? So I thought, ‘Well, I’m going to quit my job in a month.’ It was December of 2008. I’m going to take six months to a year, and I’ll live off of the little savings that I have and just go out and tell these stories. And it was a hobby. I thought it would be fun. My dream job would be going around and interviewing people that are doing awesome things. I just wanted to inspire people to also then use their power to help other people. Guess what? Next day I go in, I get laid off. [laughs] And I was like, ‘Whoo-hoo, this is awesome!’

So then how did you get started with your new mission?

So it was just me and an intern, January 2009. And I didn’t know what I was doing. I was at a cafe and I said, ‘I’m just going to create a YouTube account, and start going out and covering everyday heroes that do small things that ripple out to meaningful changes.’ And as I had more and more conversations with people, I started discovering a pattern and I thought, well, what if I went out and I spent time with these people, and really got to know them, not just a quick 10-minute interview, but we spent the whole day with them?

And something magical happens when you make that human connection and you’re no longer a stranger. You almost become like a friend. And what if I told their authentic story, both in a blog and a video? And I was like, ‘Let me think of this algorithm: Tell authentic stories plus leverage social media equals people taking action.’ And I realized that there was a huge need for that. Because when you can tell a good story, any industry that you’re in, you can convince people that ‘Hey, you know what? You matter.’

How did your past play into your desire to tell these stories?

I was born in Vietnam. At eight months old, my dad brought me and my sisters and brothers—there are five of us—to South Sacramento, with my grandparents and an aunt and uncle, and 10 of us basically crammed in a trailer park. And then we went from bad neighborhood to bad neighborhood. So me, being a Chinese boy, the only person that I saw of color on TV that I made a connection with was with Oprah. And Oprah’s a black woman and from the South! I realized that she told people’s stories that connected people from all walks of life.

My parents wanted me to be a—my mom says, in the cutest Chinese accent, ‘Doctor, lawyer, engineer,’ in that order. And little old me here loved to read, write and talk. I read everything I could get my hands on. And that was not validated until I got into college, and I had this teacher by the name of Carolyn Weber, and she was getting her doctorate at Oxford, and she was doing a sabbatical and teaching at the University of San Francisco. So my heart was palpitating when I signed up for this class, and the first week she says, ‘I want you guys to write your first assignment, a one-page autobiographical snapshot of a moment in your life that was a big deal to you, that changed your life.’ And I forgot what I wrote.

Honestly, I just wrote it real quick and I turned it in and I didn’t even want to show up to class the next week. She gives me the paper back and she looks me dead in the eye, and she goes, ‘Lovely job.’ And in perfect red penmanship, right in the center of the paper, she said, ‘You’re such a gifted and lively writer. What will you do with your talents?’ For the first time, somebody acknowledged me. And so I just thought, wow, I want to go and be a print reporter and just write these stories. And I ended up getting jobs in TV as a matter of happenstance, and realized that I can use this power for good.

When did Go Inspire Go officially launch?

I want to say we launched in March of 2009 as Go Inspire Go. And the idea is, again, ‘Go, get up, get inspired and go and use your power to help other people.’ Four years later, we have over 90 volunteers from around the world. A lot of them from different tech companies, too—LinkedIn, YouTube, Yahoo, Google. And somebody from the World Economic Forum sits on my board. We turned it into a nonprofit, and we have made over 60 videos so far, and we’ve done over a million dollars’ worth of volunteer work thus far.

Tell me about some of the stories you’ve covered.

One of the highlights is we sent 32 kids to school in Haiti for a year. Our most popular video thus far (it was picked up by Good Morning America) is about Jorge Munoz, a school bus driver by day, but known as the ‘Angel in Queens.’ For over a decade, he goes and buys enough groceries to feed 150 people, and he and his family cook. At 9:30 every night he drives his little white Toyota truck out to the subway stop in Queens, NY, and gives it out to people that need it. Over 150 people, every night. And he’s missed one day because a snowstorm shut down all lines of transportation.

Why do you think GIG has made such an impact on people?

At the core of who I am, I’m a teacher. And I’m a seeker. And that’s what I’m doing and, you know, it’s a really basic concept I think. And it’s grown so much, because I believe that when you take action based on what’s authentic to you, your power and your intent, and it’s in alignment with who you are and what you’re supposed to be doing, it grows naturally. And, you know, four months into this Arianna Huffington emailed me and she was like, ‘This is lovely. Will you share?’ So I’ve been blogging for her for four years [on Huffington Post]. And also Deepak Chopra’s community—he and his daughter have this site called Intent.com and we share our content there as well.

I always ask people ‘What can you do?’ Smile at somebody, give somebody your food. Treat somebody, the homeless person, to a meal. I don’t know. Do—and it doesn’t even have to be that big. When people see you doing what you love and you’re helping people, there’s something amazing in that. And when you can—when you’re able to tell that story and then share the love on social media, the impact is just exponential.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Topics:

Advice From the Pros, Be Inspired, Interviews

Advice From the Pros

So What Do You Do, Mike McAvoy, President of The Onion?

'I think what's great about The Onion is everyone here cares about the content.'

By Valerie Berrios

@valerieberrios

7 min read • Originally published March 19, 2014 / Updated March 19, 2026

By Valerie Berrios

@valerieberrios

7 min read • Originally published March 19, 2014 / Updated March 19, 2026

The Onion has evolved into much more than that satirical newspaper we all know and love. (Sample headline: “Obama Spends Afternoon in Garage Restoring Classic Drone.”) “America’s Finest News Source” has become a full-blown digital-media company that includes an alt-weekly entertainment news site called The A.V. Club and Onion Labs, its advertising/marketing layer that helps brands get their message across with sardonic humor and the all-important nod to pop culture via social media, video series and more.

At the helm of Onion, Inc. is Mike McAvoy, who’s been with the Chicago-based company since 2005. McAvoy oversees the advertising, product development, technology and finance departments. Together with his creative team and the newly installed senior vice president of Onion Labs, Rick Hamann, McAvoy is developing innovative, comedic campaigns that he and his clients expect to be the next big viral hit. Here, McAvoy gives us the scoop on The Onion’s foray into sponsored content.

Name: Mike McAvoy
Position: President of Onion, Inc.
Resume: Started out as a financial analyst at TCF Bank in Minneapolis, and then worked on an IPO for Capella Education Company, also in Minneapolis. Three years into his career, he got the opportunity to work as the controller at The Onion, where, he said, “actually my friend’s dad was the CEO, which is a great way to get into any company; it’s who you know, right?” In January 2007, he was promoted to chief financial officer; and then in July 2008 became the chief operating officer, overseeing all the sales and product and technology. Last year, he became president of Onion, Inc., managing all functions of the business.
Birthday: January 7, 1980
Hometown: Waukesha, Wisconsin
Education: University of St. Thomas in Minnesota
Marital status: Married with twin boys
Media mentor: Steve Hannah, CEO of Onion, Inc.
Best career advice received: Don’t be afraid to fail. And don’t be afraid of critics.
Last book read: The Circle by Dave Eggers
Twitter handle: @McAvoy_TheOnion
Guilty Pleasure: “Outside of drinking — no, I’m kidding. I like to play sports. I like to be active. But that maybe isn’t as guilty as drinking. Drinking and playing sports?”

It must be pretty fun working at The Onion. How would you describe the culture, especially having been there so long?

I think what’s great about The Onion is everyone here cares about the content; they care about the products, so you have this united front in that everyone wants to see The Onion flourish.

And in terms of the culture itself, everyone works really hard. It’s a very dedicated group. Everyone’s really smart, and they have to be in order to get the joke. That’s one of the nice things about creating smart content is you attract smart people.

And it’s highly collaborative. You know, it’s a culture that was built on collaboration. There are no bylines for the content we create, and that history of The Onion creative process has really been translated to the rest of the business culture and the product culture, where it’s very team-oriented.

Like so many other publications, The Onion has moved away from its roots in print. How has the company adapted to digital?

So I think The Onion, maybe like many of our peers who were in the print business, we knew that at some point the days of print were numbered, and we were able to focus on transitioning out of print.

In 2009, we developed a franchise licensing program, where we converted our print market to really just syndication deals, or licensing deals, as a way for us to get out of the print business and focus exclusively on digital, including video.

So in 2007, we launched The Onion News Network. In 1996, we actually went online, and we always knew that the way to grow the business was through digital, and by getting out of print, it allowed us to focus 100 percent on it, which has allowed us to pursue other ventures and create Onion Labs.

Great segue. How did the idea for Onion Labs come about and how did you land Microsoft as one of your first clients?

The idea of Onion Labs, or really creating content for brands, started years ago. We’ve always gotten requests from Fortune 500 brands to create content for them as part of media buys. And in the case of Microsoft, we were at the same media agency, using the same contacts that we call on to sell media placements.

We treated [that campaign] the same way we treated everything that we do on TheOnion.com. We went through a process of creating a ton of ideas that Microsoft poured through and ended up picking the one that worked the best for them.

So it became our pitch really as a business to evolve with the whole native-advertising movement, as well as advertisers’ decision to change how they tried to reach millennials. The more they realized they need to create custom content or have content created by people who are masters at reaching that audience, the more opportunity we had for Onion Labs. And hence, we officially began Labs in 2012.

Is the tone of the content you create for brands always “Onion”-like on some level?

It really depends on what someone’s trying to buy. Sometimes the creative direction from the advertisers or the goals are much more to create something entertaining than it is to create something satirical. It’s really a mix of whatever the initiative is.

Do you have a separate creative team devoted to sponsored content?

What we do, which I think is unique for many publishers, is we use the same writing talent that we have for our company, for all our brands running in the A.V. Club, to produce The Onion Labs content. And so the idea process starts with the same writers and the same team that creates the hit videos for The Onion News Network.

So in terms of total writing talent for the company, I think we have 20 or so writers, 25 A.V. Club writers who are on staff, and so it’s a mix of those writers who work on these types of projects, as well as we have ideas from various contributors and freelancers who also help out.

Who produces your videos—and what platform do you use?

We have a video team in house. And for bigger shoots, we add on resources. We have a great freelance network in Chicago that we’ve built. Some projects are 100 percent in house, some of them we’re using outside vendors, and it’s just really dependent on how much work we have and what other work we’re doing at the time.

We use YouTube. We’re one of their premium-content providers, so we have a deal with them where we are paid money to produce original content. We also distribute content that comes from TheOnion.com to YouTube, including these advertising campaigns, and so that’s all part of our network.

But we’ve grown TheOnion.com so dramatically that that really is our primary distribution platform. The audience that we’ve built on The Onion has grown a couple hundred percent in the last 18 months.

How else does Onion Labs incorporate social media?

Every campaign that we do has a component of social activation, social promotion. So all sponsored content runs through the context of—we’re promoting a tweet that will say something like, ‘Advertiser thought this sponsored post was a good idea.’

So here’s one [example]: ‘If you believe some websites still have the integrity not to shill for sponsors, you’re as dumb as we thought.’ So for any of the content we create, whether it’s for Microsoft or for DSW, Lenovo, Ford, Home Depot, any of those big brands, we’re positioning the sponsored content in that way. And we’ve also done business where we actually are running [clients’] social media accounts for the year.

Tell me about one of your most successful campaigns so far.

I think we’ve had quite a few that have been good and have gotten good plays. We haven’t had the Old Spice viral campaign just yet, you know, where we’ve gotten 100 million hits. But we’ll let you know when we do.

I think our most successful piece, our most viewed piece was an April Fool’s joke for YouTube [last year about the social-media site selecting the best video on YouTube], which has been seen by over 11 million people.

We do a lot of work that is behind the scenes, white label or work for hire, where we’re creating content for a brand and the audience, or the world, doesn’t know it.

How do you handle native advertising when it comes to your own content?

I think for our audience, we want to bring to life ideas that we’re excited about and get advertisers to sponsor them. And that’s the beauty of the Lenovo program. We brought to life a show called “Tough Season,” which was made possible by Lenovo, and if Lenovo didn’t write the checks and didn’t help us coproduce that show, it would never have come to be.

We did that in conjunction with Digitas, the ad agency, and they were great on that. And so we’ve found a way to kind of work directly with advertisers, but also in conjunction with agencies, as they’ve been great partners for us for years.

Another one that the A.V. Club has done is with Ford, and it’s called Pop Pilgrims; it’s really a travel show in which our editors are hosts and they talk about pop-culture sites and kind of give a back story as to why a certain location is relevant in the pop-culture community.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Topics:

Advice From the Pros, Be Inspired

Advice From the Pros

So What Do You Do, Eric Noe, Managing Editor at ABC News Digital?

Noe talks challenges and opportunities in digital news

By Valerie Berrios

@valerieberrios

8 min read • Originally published April 9, 2014 / Updated March 19, 2026

By Valerie Berrios

@valerieberrios

8 min read • Originally published April 9, 2014 / Updated March 19, 2026

Update: Eric Noe is no longer the managing editor at ABC News Digital.

Eric Noe knows digital news. The journo, who began his career at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, has been with ABC News Digital since 2004. His current role as managing editor means he’s leading editorial operations for ABCNews.com and overseeing a team of 40 across all verticals. His day-to-day consists of finding innovative ways to package news online, as well as integrating social media, mobile and video-streaming strategies, all while coordinating coverage with ABC News broadcasts.

Here, Noe speaks with Mediabistro about covering breaking news—such as last year’s Boston Marathon bombing—in the digital space; shifting trends in news media, specifically in mobile and social media; and tips on succeeding in this rapidly evolving industry.

Name: Eric Noe
Position: Managing editor at ABC News Digital
Resume: Started his media career in 1997 as a bureau clerk at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, where he wrote obituaries, letters to the editor, local features and more. After a yearlong stint as an editor, he went back to school to earn his master’s degree in journalism at Northwestern University in Chicago. He stayed in the city to work for Reuters’ Midwest bureau, covering business and commodities news. In 2004, he joined ABC as a general-assignment reporter. Later, he became the business editor for ABCNews.com, then moved on to managing the edit desk. In 2010, he became the site’s deputy managing editor. Last year, he was promoted to managing editor.
Birthday: January 5
Hometown: Atlanta
Education: BA in English from Emory University; master’s from Northwestern
Marital status: Engaged
Media mentor: “I would say the first person who sort of drew me into this business was an old Southern columnist named Lewis Grizzard, who worked at the Journal-Constitution. My dad loved him, and I used to buy his books for my dad and read his work when I was a kid. He actually passed away a few years before I took my first job at the Journal-Constitution.”
Best career advice received: “It was one of my early editors, a guy named Frank Star, who told me, I think after the first piece that I did for him that he actually liked, ‘Just remember, you’ve chosen a business with a very short memory, so whatever you’ve done by the end of the day, be it good or bad, you wake up tomorrow with a blank slate. So you better come in tomorrow ready to start over again.'”
Last book read: The Big Crowd by Kevin Baker
Favorite TV shows: Mad Men and Seinfeld
Guilty pleasure: “I’m not afraid to watch bad ’80s movies, so you can catch me on something like Point Break on TNT on a Sunday afternoon, and I’ll pretty much watch that all the way through.”
Twitter handle: @Noe_Eric

How is ABC News online different from its TV counterpart and how has digital adapted over the years?

Well, I wouldn’t say it’s different. I mean it’s changed a lot, actually, since I’ve been [at ABCNews.com]. When I first got there, we were this little sort of Internet entity that was down at the end of the block, and we were actually in a different building than most of the newsgathering operation. And then two or three years ago, we moved into a brand new integrated newsroom, where the digital room is now back to back with the managing editors of domestic and international news. So we’re kind of at the nerve center of anything and everything that goes on at ABC News, which has been great for us.

Now it’s just a matter of figuring out how to take the news that’s gathered and put it into the different funnels. I mean, obviously, the same way the shows like Good Morning America and World News have their own specific products and their own specific audience, it’s really the same for us. We have to figure out how best to package the news that’s gathered for more of a digital audience, and, increasingly, more of a mobile audience as well, people who are getting their news on handheld devices and tablets.

Are there specific mobile initiatives you’ve launched?

Over the summer we hired an emerging platforms editor to manage the packaging and the delivery of our mobile content. We also launched refreshments to our mobile apps in the fall, Android and iPhone, that allow people to self-curate their mobile content. They can follow a story or subject matter that we’ve been producing content on, and they’re able to star it within the app and get any updates delivered directly to their device.

It’s something I think we’ll do more with in the future because it is a way for us to allow people to feel like they’re in control of what we’re giving. And it’s being delivered to them, rather than them having to actively go out and find it from us via a search engine like Google or Yahoo.

Is competition from other networks in the digital platform as aggressive as it often is for TV news?

I don’t know that that’s necessarily what we limit our competition to these days. I mean, now our competition is pretty much anybody who’s delivering news and information. And while being a part of an organization like ABC News we’ll always be very conscious of what the other big networks are doing and what the other big digital entities are doing, we’re also interested in what emerging digital media companies are doing. What are startups doing? How are they doing things that are different?

Can you give me an example of how your digital team covers breaking news?

One [example] that sort of was a hit with our audience, interestingly and kind of funnily, is the Justin Bieber arrest. So that’s a story that obviously is not something that is going to have global geopolitical ramifications, but, yet, for us, it’s a story that’s going to be the story of the day. And our entertainment team had done a great job of covering all the various things that Bieber had been up to in the months leading up to that, as he seemed to have gone off the golden path.

And then when he was arrested, it became more of a news story as well. We looked at a couple of different ways that we could also take it apart and have a little bit of fun with it. He’s kind of known for, on his Twitter stream, espousing all kinds of life advice through great philosophers and things like that, so we embedded a bunch of his tweets and tried to sort of compare whether or not he was following his own advice.

How else do you leverage social media?

We’ve gotten tremendous traffic on Facebook in the last year. We’re working on building out our reporting staff and being a little bit more light on our feet and being a little quicker to react to things. You look at something like the Boston Marathon week. In an event like that, Twitter becomes a competitor, because there’s so much information flying around at such a high rate of speed that we realize that if we want to resonate with people, we have to be as fast as we possibly can.

Right, so then you are in the thick of it, like every other news outlet.

It was something where, you know, that bomb goes off on Monday, and… within minutes and within hours after that, we had people on the ground in Boston, and we had a digital journalist in Moscow, digging up background on the bombers’ family in Kyrgyzstan, giving us great information from there. I was actually out on the West Coast when that bomb went off, on a trip with my fiancée, so I hopped a plane back—and there’s nothing worse for a journalist covering a breaking story than having to shut off your Blackberry for four hours and be essentially out of touch, and so I was toggling back and forth between the various cable coverage on the airplane TV—and then hopped into the newsroom Monday night and basically stayed there for the next five days.

We were able to lean on our sister company, ESPN—you know, this was a sporting event as well—and they gave us great information. Our affiliate up in Boston, WCVB, gave us great live streams. And by the end of the week, we had tremendous traffic. And I’m kind of proud to say that we didn’t have to walk back a single fact. We got everything right and didn’t have to issue any retractions, and it was a tremendous opportunity for us to show the muscle of our news division and what we can do when we [channel] it through the digital funnel.

What advice do you have for aspiring journalists looking to break into digital news?

I would say be a storyteller. When you’re thinking about a story that you’re covering, be thinking of what’s your headline, what is the most important thing here. And think about that when you’re reading or consuming video news. What is your takeaway, and then figure out how you would package it. [Storytelling is] not the straight inverted pyramid that it used to be; there are plenty of different ways to tell a story.

I think there’s been a lot of talk about listicles and whether or not they are a valid way to present news, and of course they are. There’s always going to be a place for the big news of the day, for extensively written and reported and sourced storytelling, but there are also ways to do it with a little bit of flair and a little bit of personality.

What would you say is best part of your job?

Well, waking up every day with a clean slate and trying to figure out how to cover the most interesting news of the day. And I think, you know, I mentioned competition from some less traditional sources.

They’ve kept us on our toes and they’ve forced us to think that you can do news and you can do things that are important and relevant to people, but you can do them in ways that don’t have to be totally serious all the time.

The best part of my job is that you get to be creative about the way you want to cover the news. And that’s fun, and it’s a challenge, and it’s dynamic, and we’re lucky to be in the business.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Topics:

Advice From the Pros, Be Inspired, Interviews

Advice From the Pros

So What Do You Do, Jesse Ventura, Political Pundit, Host of ‘Off the Grid’?

'I'm actually better being interviewed than I am doing the interview.'

By Valerie Berrios

@valerieberrios

8 min read • Originally published May 14, 2014 / Updated March 19, 2026

By Valerie Berrios

@valerieberrios

8 min read • Originally published May 14, 2014 / Updated March 19, 2026

Jesse Ventura has never been one to mince his words. The Vietnam vet turned pro wrestler turned governor of Minnesota has been openly critical of, among other things, the nation’s two-party system, organized religion and the mainstream media.

He’s also proved to be a staunch supporter of gay marriage and the rights of Mexican immigrants who cross the border without documentation. These and other hot topics have been tackled in his books, radio shows and now via his Off the Grid online show on Ora TV, which Ventura actually films “off the grid” in Mexico. His new sounding board seems to be working for him. In just one month of the show’s January launch, viewership reached 1.3 million.

Of the show, Ventura says, “I report the stories that need to be heard. Not the ones that a corporate sponsor wants you to hear.” Recent guests have included Edward Snowden’s legal adviser, Ben Mizner; Thomas Andrews Drake; and Ron Paul. Ventura says he aims to give his guests the floor so they can “convey their message without interruption or interrogation.”

Here, Ventura talks more about his show, his disdain for network TV and his much-talked-about run for presidency.

**How does Off the Grid differ from other shows you’ve worked on, such as Jesse Ventura’s America on MSNBC?**

Well, this program differs in the fact that in my short-lived time at MSNBC of about four weeks—even though they paid me huge money for three years—all the topics came from upstairs. In other words, they were channeled down to the people on TV and that’s what you talk about. For Off the Grid, the topics come from me. And I don’t answer to anybody. It’s whatever topic I want to discuss that particular day. Even if something else is scheduled, I can change it right now. So it’s truly the freedom that I’m granted with Off the Grid. Plus, I don’t fall under the FCC here [in Mexico]. I’m not a big person that swears, but you have that freedom of speech when the FCC’s not involved.

So how would you describe the format of the show?

I’m not Larry King, you know, and I made that clear. Larry King, to me, is one of the greatest interview guys on the planet; he’s been that for decades. I’m not him. I’m not an interview person. I’m actually better being interviewed than I am doing the interview. I like being on the other side. So, my show has the command central, which is [my producer] Alex Logan back in what I refer to as East Berlin, the United States, the lockdown country, and so Alex will make statements [about various issues] and actually question me [about my views on those topics].

We also do whole shows just on interacting with our fans [in a series called] ‘Ask Jesse.’ They ask me questions, whatever they wanna ask, and it’s all off the top of my head. And I give them an honest answer as best I can give it at that time without doing any research on it.

We do four shows a week. It’s on every Tuesday through Friday on Ora.tv at 3 p.m. Eastern, and of course because it’s the Internet, you can pull them up any time of the day you want to watch them. You know, that’s the great thing about the Internet, is the personal convenience for the person who wants to view the shows.

How did you end up on Ora TV? Why this platform?

My last book tour in the United States was not overly successful because I was pretty much blackballed by NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox News, MSNBC. I have a difficult time now gaining an audience there because they won’t put me on, and so Off the Grid is my way of combating them.

They can’t control me now. I can do my own show and people can listen to me and hear what I have to say at their convenience. It’s been a Godsend for me. I thank Larry King from the day we met doing an interview on my book tour when he told me about Ora.tv.

Why do you think the major networks have ‘blackballed’ you?

Well, because the networks are controlled by the two political parties, the Republicans and the Democrats. And I am not either; in fact, I’m scary to them. I’ve defeated them twice. I defeated them for mayor of Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, and then I defeated them for the governorship of Minnesota. I’m a dangerous person to them, and the more they can marginalize me, or the more they can keep me out of my viewpoints, the better it is for them and their control over the country.

Tell me about the topics you cover on your show.

I cover whatever happens to be on my thought process for the day. I certainly try to be timely. I certainly love to attack the Democrats and Republicans and their political system of bribery that they’ve created. And I’m trying to wake up America to the fact that we need to abolish these two political parties because, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams warned us that the downfall of America would be when political parties take over the government. I think we’re there.

I will also talk on topics that I think are relevant to the United States, like immigration and things of that nature, and our constant going to war. If we wouldn’t spend all our money on war, like [with] Iraq, we would have more money for [things like] healthcare than we could ever imagine.

I just try and keep [the interviews] timely, try and keep them humorous, and you know, I throw in my brand of entertainment. My focus is to entertain. My focus is to perform. If you go back to my wrestling days, I could do a three-minute interview; here, I can do a 10- to 12-minute interview on a particular subject. The only thing missing is Mean Gene. Do you know what I’m talking about there? ‘Mean Gene’ Okerlund used to be the announcer on wrestling who would stand there and hold the mic while I’d talk.

One of your most-viewed interviews was with former New Jersey Superior Court Judge Andrew Napolitano. Why do you think that conversation was such a draw?

Well, because, No. 1: Judge Napolitano and I are good friends. No. 2: politically, we think very much alike; we’re not very adversarial. You know, we’re pretty much down the line with each other on how we think. We’re libertarians, small ‘l.’ And I like to do the interviews, really, where they’re more conversation-like, not where I’m grilling someone. The key to doing an interview is to allow your person to talk. That’s why you have them on, to let them talk. I get plenty of time where I get to talk. So when I get someone like Judge Napolitano, I like to step back a little and hear what he has to say, because that helps me. I learn from that.

I actually learned a great thing the other day watching TV, from Nancy Grace. On gun control, where she confronted Piers Morgan and said, ‘I’m sick of you Brits talking down to us about gun control when you’re the reason we have guns.’ The British soldiers would invade our houses; that’s why we went to war with them. So who are the Brits to tell us about gun control when they’re responsible for it? I thought she was wonderful, and I didn’t think I’d ever be able to quote her, but I’m glad I can.

So is there any truth to you running for president in 2016?

You never say never. I don’t really have an intention of doing it, and if I did do it, I’d have to do it my way. And that would require an extreme grassroots movement. I don’t think the country’s prepared to make that type of sacrifice. If they were, and I felt that they were ready for it. See, my demon inside me, I have a demon inside me, too, and the demon rears its head occasionally and always says to me, ‘If not you, then who?’ You follow that?

Yes, and so hypothetically, what party would you run under? You used to be a Reform Party candidate.

I would run under no party whatsoever. There is no Reform Party anymore; it doesn’t exist. I would run under no party on purpose and here’s why: that would be the essence of my entire campaign. I would challenge the American people to make history and elect the first president since George Washington who does not belong to a political party. Can you imagine that?

I think people are that offended and that disgruntled over these two parties right now. They should have all been fired last fall when they allowed a government shutdown. Because if you’d have done that in the private sector, if you had a drop-dead date a year from now to finish a project, and if you got to that drop-dead date—which they knew, October 15, whatever it was—and you didn’t have the job completed, I can guarantee you in the private sector you’d be fired.

What do you think of the media’s coverage of political issues?

It’s horrible. Well, the problem with our media today is this: the downfall of the American media, believe it or not, was the show 60 Minutes. It was a terrific show, at least it used to be. I don’t watch it much anymore, but it was, at one time, phenomenal, investigative reporting. Here’s why it was the downfall: Because 60 Minutes shot to No. 1 in the ratings, and then the bean counters realized, ‘Wait a minute, you mean we can make money with the news?’

Because up until that point they wrote the news off. There was a separate department; you had the entertainment department and the news department. The news would lose money, but they’d make it up in the entertainment department. Along came 60 Minutes, and the news started to make money. That’s your problem: The news is now into ratings. It’s about getting ratings, rather than informing people. It’s now entertainment.

The news has morphed to the entertainment division. They spent more days covering the death of Anna Nicole Smith than they did the death of John Kennedy.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Topics:

Advice From the Pros, Be Inspired, Interviews

Career Transition

Food Media Jobs: How to Break Into Food Writing, Styling & Photography

Career paths, salary expectations, and expert advice for aspiring food media professionals

By Jennifer Pullinger

8 min read • Originally published January 21, 2015 / Updated March 19, 2026

By Jennifer Pullinger

8 min read • Originally published January 21, 2015 / Updated March 19, 2026

Last updated: January 2026

The food media industry offers diverse career paths for people who love food and storytelling. From food magazine editors and cookbook authors to food stylists and social media creators, opportunities exist across publishing, advertising, television, and digital platforms.

Whether you want to write for Bon Appétit, style dishes for commercial shoots, or build a food-focused following on Instagram or TikTok, here’s how to launch a career in food media.

Types of Food Media Jobs

Food media encompasses a wide range of roles across different platforms:

Role	What They Do	Where They Work
Food Writer/Editor	Write articles, recipes, and reviews	Magazines, websites, cookbooks
Food Stylist	Make food look appealing for photos/video	Advertising, TV, publishing
Food Photographer	Capture food images for various media	Magazines, brands, restaurants
Recipe Developer	Create and test recipes	Test kitchens, brands, publishers
Food Content Creator	Create food videos and social content	YouTube, TikTok, Instagram
Food Copywriter	Write marketing copy for food brands	Agencies, brands, restaurants
Food Journalist	Report on the food industry, trends, and culture	Newspapers, magazines, digital media

Food Media Salaries

Compensation in food media varies widely based on role, experience, and whether you work in-house or freelance:

Role	Entry-Level	Experienced
Food Writer/Editor	$40,000 – $55,000	$60,000 – $90,000+
Food Stylist	$300 – $500/day	$800 – $2,000+/day
Food Photographer	$250 – $500/day	$1,000 – $5,000+/day
Recipe Developer	$45,000 – $55,000	$65,000 – $85,000
Food Content Creator	Variable (brand deals)	$50,000 – $500,000+
Food Copywriter	$45,000 – $55,000	$65,000 – $90,000

Food Stylist: Making Food Look Irresistible

Food stylists make food look appealing for photographs, commercials, and video content. Their work appears on menus, billboards, television, packaging, and cookbooks.

Atlanta-based Tami Hardeman got her start in food styling by way of fashion. As a writer for Women’s Wear Daily, she styled photo shoots as part of her role. When offered the opportunity to style food for a shoot, she took it—and never looked back. She’s since worked with major brands including McDonald’s, Arby’s, and Olive Garden.

“Food stylists are hired to make food look good enough to eat,” Hardeman explains. “These days, stylists don’t use a lot of fake food or tricks—too many truth-in-advertising laws. I have a huge kit of tools: spritzers, tweezers of every sort, hundreds of brushes.”

How to Become a Food Stylist

Assist established stylists – Most successful food stylists spent years assisting before going solo
Practice constantly – Cook dishes, style them, photograph them
Build a portfolio – Document your best work on a website
Study culinary arts – Some programs offer food styling courses
Stay current – Follow food photography trends on Instagram and in magazines

“I assisted for a long time,” Hardeman says. “Take time with your camera—it doesn’t have to be fancy—and take photographs of your food. The best way to learn how to become a stylist is to practice.”

Food Writer & Blogger: Carving Out a Niche

Food writing spans many formats: magazine features, cookbook authorship, restaurant reviews, recipe content, and food journalism. Many food writers build audiences through blogs or newsletters before transitioning to traditional publishing.

Successful food blogger Clotilde Dusoulier parlayed her site Chocolate & Zucchini into a career as a cookbook author. The path from blogger to published author remains viable today—though the platform has shifted from blogs to newsletters, Instagram, and TikTok.

Types of Food Writing Jobs

Magazine/website staff writer – Bon Appétit, Food & Wine, Serious Eats, Eater
Cookbook author – Publishers like Clarkson Potter, Ten Speed Press
Restaurant critic – Newspapers, magazines, digital outlets
Recipe writer – Test kitchens, brands, food publications
Food journalist – Covering the food industry, policy, and culture
Newsletter creator – Substack, Beehiiv, and other platforms

How to Break Into Food Writing

Start a platform – Blog, newsletter, or social media presence showcasing your voice
Pitch publications – Study mastheads and pitch editors with specific story ideas
Build clips – Write for smaller publications to build a portfolio
Engage the community – Comment on, share, and connect with other food writers
Develop expertise – Specialize in a cuisine, technique, or angle

“Write the kind of pieces that would interest a Serious Eats or a Food & Wine on your own platform,” advises food writer Zach Brooks. “Once you have a nice body of work, start joining their community by engaging with their content. By contributing your unique perspective and quality content, you’ll get noticed.”

Food Photographer: Building a Mouthwatering Portfolio

Food photographers capture images for cookbooks, magazines, advertising campaigns, restaurants, and social media. The field ranges from editorial work (magazines, cookbooks) to commercial work (advertising, packaging).

New York-based photographer Bill Brady has been a professional photographer for over 20 years, with clients including Boar’s Head, Godiva, Moët Hennessy, and Krispy Kreme.

“The best advice I can give aspiring photographers is to shoot and create a strong portfolio,” Brady says. “If you have zero experience, approach a local restaurant and offer to shoot their food for free.”

How to Become a Food Photographer

Shoot constantly – Build a diverse portfolio of food images
Study the style – Analyze photography in publications you want to work for
Offer free shoots – Approach local restaurants to build experience
Network relentlessly – Referrals drive most photography work
Learn lighting – Natural and artificial lighting techniques are essential
Develop a signature style – Stand out with a recognizable aesthetic

“Most people hire you if you have a photograph in your portfolio that matches what they want,” Brady explains. “If you want to shoot for a particular magazine, study their style and create a unique spin on it.”

Award-winning photographer Lou Manna, whose work appears in over 40 cookbooks and campaigns for Kraft Foods, Dannon, and the Culinary Institute of America, emphasizes versatility: “These days one cannot just be a food photographer—it’s only 40 percent of what I do.”

Food Content Creator: The Modern Path

Social media has created entirely new career paths in food media. Food content creators build audiences on platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube, earning income through brand partnerships, sponsored content, and their own products.

Platforms for Food Content Creators

TikTok – Short-form recipe videos, food trends, restaurant reviews
Instagram – Food photography, Reels, recipe content
YouTube – Long-form cooking videos, food travel, reviews
Substack/newsletters – Recipe newsletters, food writing
Podcasts – Food industry discussions, interviews, storytelling

How to Build a Food Content Career

Choose your niche – A specific angle helps you stand out (budget cooking, regional cuisine, dietary restrictions)
Post consistently – Algorithms reward regular content
Engage authentically – Build community, respond to comments, collaborate with others
Learn the platforms – Each has different best practices for content
Diversify income – Brand deals, affiliate marketing, digital products, cookbooks

Food Copywriter: Crafting the Right Words

Food copywriters write marketing copy for restaurants, food brands, packaging, and advertising. The role combines writing skills with food knowledge.

Andy Boynton of Seattle transitioned from managing editor at Amazon to freelance food copywriter. “Cooking was always a passion, so I took some culinary classes—but it became clear early on that I was a better writer than a chef,” he says.

Boynton combined his writing background with his love of food, freelancing for Allrecipes.com, Le Cordon Bleu schools, and reviewing food books for Publishers Weekly and Gastronomica.

“There are a lot of opportunities for food copywriters,” Boynton says. “Everyone from food manufacturers to supermarket chains to gourmet retailers needs writers. I’m a big believer that you should use what you have—your connections and experience—and you have more than you think.”

How to Break Into Food Media

1. Build a Portfolio

Every food media career requires demonstrable work. Start creating content now—even without paying clients. Write recipes, style dishes, photograph food, and create videos. Document everything on a professional website.

2. Develop Food Knowledge

Immerse yourself in food culture. Cook regularly, dine out, read cookbooks and food publications, and travel for food experiences. The more you know, the better your work will be.

3. Assist Established Professionals

Many food stylists, photographers, and test kitchen professionals hire assistants. This is invaluable hands-on learning and networking.

4. Network in the Industry

Attend food events, engage on social media, and join professional organizations. Referrals drive much of the hiring in food media.

5. Pitch Relentlessly

For writing and photography, pitch publications directly with specific ideas. Study their content, identify gaps, and propose stories only you can tell.

6. Take Entry-Level Positions

Editorial assistant roles at food magazines, test kitchen positions, and agency assistant jobs provide pathways into the industry.

Where to Find Food Media Jobs

Mediabistro – Media and publishing jobs including food positions
LinkedIn – Search “food editor,” “food stylist,” “recipe developer”
Publication websites – Check careers pages at Condé Nast, Dotdash Meredith, etc.
Food industry associations – IACP, James Beard Foundation job boards

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I get a job in food media?

Start by building a portfolio that demonstrates your skills—whether that’s food writing, photography, or styling. Assist established professionals to gain experience, network within the industry, and pitch publications or agencies directly. Entry-level positions, such as editorial assistant or test kitchen assistant, can also provide pathways in.

What jobs are there in food media?

Food media jobs include food writer/editor, food stylist, food photographer, recipe developer, food content creator, food copywriter, cookbook author, restaurant critic, test kitchen professional, and food journalist. Opportunities exist in magazines, digital media, television, advertising, publishing, and social media.

How much do food media jobs pay?

Salaries vary widely. Entry-level food writers and editors earn $40,000–$55,000, while senior editors can earn $70,000–$90,000+. Food stylists charge $300–$ 2,000 per day, depending on their experience. Food photographers earn $250–$5,000+ per day. Content creators have highly variable incomes based on audience size and brand deals.

Do I need culinary training to work in food media?

Formal culinary training isn’t required for most food media jobs, but knowledge of food is essential. Many successful food writers, stylists, and photographers are self-taught home cooks. However, culinary school can provide valuable skills and connections, especially for recipe development and styling.

How do I become a food stylist?

Start by assisting established food stylists—this is how most professionals learn the craft. Practice styling and photographing food on your own, build a portfolio, and stay current with visual trends. Some culinary schools offer food styling courses, but hands-on experience is most important.

Can I make a living as a food blogger?

Yes, though it’s competitive. Food bloggers earn income through advertising, sponsored content, affiliate marketing, and product sales. Building a sustainable income typically takes years of consistent content creation. Many food bloggers diversify their income through cookbooks, brand partnerships, and other revenue streams.

What skills do I need for food photography?

Technical photography skills (lighting, composition, camera operation), food styling basics, photo editing proficiency, and an eye for visual storytelling. Understanding how to work with food stylists and art directors is also important for commercial work.

How do I get published in food magazines?

Study the publication’s content and voice, then pitch specific story ideas to editors. Build clips by writing for smaller publications first. Having a platform (blog, social media) that demonstrates your expertise helps. Networking and persistence are essential—expect rejection before acceptance.

Ready to launch your food media career? Browse food media jobs on Mediabistro.

Topics:

Be Inspired, Career Transition

Productivity

8 Side Hustles for Writers and Journalists

From tutoring to social media consulting, here are flexible side gigs that put your writing skills to work—plus advice from journalists who've done them.

By Amanda Ernst

Amanda Ernst Kallet is a senior business development executive currently leading AI partnerships at Meta, where she is a credited contributor to the Llama 3 and SeamlessM4T research publications. She previously held director-level roles at Verizon Media and AOL, and holds an MBA from Columbia Business School.

7 min read • Originally published February 12, 2015 / Updated March 19, 2026

By Amanda Ernst

7 min read • Originally published February 12, 2015 / Updated March 19, 2026

Last updated: January 2026

When you think of side jobs for writers, freelance reporting, blogging, and editing come immediately to mind. But beyond the obvious options, there are many other fields where journalists and writers can thrive—either as side gigs or full career transitions.

Here are eight side hustles for writers and journalists, along with advice from professionals who’ve successfully pursued them.

1. Youth Writing Instructor

Freelance writer Ellen Engelke was teaching dance classes at a cultural arts center in Torrance, California, when she noticed the city was looking for a literary arts teacher for children. With just her resume, a writing sample, and a curriculum outline, she secured the gig despite having no prior teaching experience.

Now she teaches several eight-week classes that meet once a week for a few hours. The schedule leaves plenty of time for freelance work.

“It is really fun,” she says. “I have students who are really loyal and they come back over and over. And I was able to branch out and teach a class about knitting and crochet, too.”

How to get the gig: Check your local community arts programs, cultural centers, schools, and community colleges for openings. If there isn’t a class you want to teach, put together a curriculum and pitch it to them.

2. Private Tutor

If you don’t want to create a curriculum for a whole class, you can tutor students privately. Since the SAT includes an essay section, many high schoolers need help with writing skills and test-taking strategies.

You can also offer college entrance essay coaching or help college students and recent grads with resume and cover letter writing.

How to get the gig: Find clients through word of mouth or register with platforms like Wyzant, which handles payments so you don’t have to ask clients directly. You set your own rates—many tutors charge $50 to $200+ per session, depending on the subject.

3. Business Writing Coach

By focusing on professionals who already have established careers, you can turn part-time tutoring into a full-time venture. That’s what Candace Talmadge, owner of Copy-Clinic and a former journalist and publicist, did.

“I spent my years as a journalist mostly as a business reporter,” she explains. “I have a lot of experience writing about business topics and doing PR for businesses, so it was a natural for me.”

Now she works with clients one-on-one through a members-only website, charging a monthly fee for coaching time. She also works with businesses like accounting firms, teaching their employees writing, editing, and research skills.

How to get the gig: Networking is key. Use your existing contacts to find leads, or join organizations whose members might make ideal clients.

4. Publishing Consultant

You know how to pitch, right? So you can coach others through the process—and they’ll pay you for it.

Author and publishing consultant Maryann Reid started her own company, Books & Buzz, after noticing a pattern. “A lot of my friends and people I was meeting at networking events were always asking me how I was able to get an article in Glamour, how I was able to write five novels, and how I was able to get on 20/20. They were willing to pay to improve their skills.”

She developed a niche doing speaking engagements and private coaching about increasing visibility and publishing books.

How to get the gig: You can start a consultancy with as little as $100 in capital, Reid says. Create a homepage, promote your offerings on LinkedIn, and set up speaking engagements to earn income and find clients. “Do it as soon as possible,” she advises. “If you’re working full-time, leverage what contacts and income you have at the moment.”

5. Brand Marketing Consultant

Freelance writer Isha Edwards also works as a brand marketing consultant through her company, EPiC Measures. She says working in marketing gives her “more leverage” and makes her more valuable to potential clients.

“Journalists are a dime a dozen, but when you’re marketing brands for other companies, you have credibility on another level,” she says. “The revenue is more solid, more consistent, and you have more diverse product offerings.”

Edwards does marketing consulting, communications, brand management, strategy, and branded events for both individual and organizational clients.

How to get the gig: Craft a strong pitch so potential clients can see the benefit of hiring you over another consultant or agency.

Working with a brand to develop their social media strategy puts you at the intersection of PR and marketing, and typically requires original content creation and some blogging.

“Journalists have an even bigger opportunity to get into social media now, because there is always something new and more hands are always needed,” says Douglas Marshall, a journalist turned social media manager who has worked with Saks Fifth Avenue and consults for brands like Bond No. 9.

“Journalists are currency in the social media world, probably more than they think they are. Always market yourself as your own brand, have a point of view, know that you are an expert (even if you don’t yet believe it), and people will start asking YOU to work for them rather than you having to find it.”

How to get the gig: Even without brand social media experience, you can land jobs based on your skills. Highlight your personal social media presence, attend social media conferences, research best practices, and come up with a loose strategy to pitch during interviews.

7. Paralegal

A few years after graduating from journalism school, Gaye Weintraub earned her paralegal certification and joined top law firms, where her journalism skills gave her a significant advantage.

“As a paralegal, you do a lot of research and a lot of writing,” she explains. “When attorneys see that you have writing capabilities that others don’t have, they ask you to do more work. I’ve had attorneys ask me to write briefs, and I was hired by a sitting judge to be a research assistant. I was even able to interview potential clients, which most paralegals don’t handle because they don’t have interview skills.”

Though paralegals can work long hours (sometimes 60-80 hour weeks), many receive four weeks of vacation, bonuses, and other benefits. And as Weintraub pointed out, many journalists already work those hours for less pay.

How to get the gig: If you have a bachelor’s degree (which many firms require), you need to complete a paralegal certification program. Weintraub suggests finding one that is ABA-approved. Many online programs take only a few months to complete.

8. Turn Your Passion Into a Side Gig

Former Good Morning America anchor Lisa McRee decided to put the same passion and dedication she brought to reporting into improving her health and that of her family. Her journey led to a website, a video series for Everyday Health, weekly newsletters, and an upcoming book—a whole new career she never anticipated.

“You have to find something that you’re passionate about, because it’s not going to pay your bills out of the gate,” McRee says. “You have to be doing it for your health.”

Whatever you’re passionate about—fitness, cooking, personal finance, travel—your journalism skills can help you build an audience and eventually monetize it.

Quick Comparison: Side Gigs for Writers

Side Gig	Time Commitment	Earning Potential	Startup Needed
Youth Writing Instructor	Part-time (set schedule)	$25-$75/hour	Curriculum outline
Private Tutor	Flexible	$50-$200/session	Minimal
Business Writing Coach	Flexible	$75-$200+/hour	Website, networking
Publishing Consultant	Flexible	Varies widely	~$100 (website)
Brand Marketing Consultant	Project-based	$50-$150+/hour	Portfolio, pitch deck
Social Media Manager	Part-time to full-time	$500-$5,000+/month per client	Strong personal presence
Paralegal	Full-time (career change)	$50,000-$80,000/year	Certification required
Passion Project	Varies	Long-term potential	Time and dedication

Ready to explore new opportunities? Browse jobs on Mediabistro.

FAQs About Side Gigs for Writers

What are the best side hustles for writers?

The best side hustles for writers include tutoring, freelance editing, content writing, social media management, copywriting, business writing coaching, and publishing consulting. The right choice depends on your skills, interests, and how much time you can commit.

How much can writers earn from side gigs?

Earnings vary widely. Private tutors charge $50-$200 per session. Social media managers can earn $ 500 to $5,000 per month per client. Consultants often charge $ 75 to $200 per hour. The key is to specialize and position yourself as an expert.

Can journalists transition to marketing careers?

Yes, journalists have highly transferable marketing skills—strong writing, research, storytelling, interviewing, deadline management, and an understanding of audiences. Many journalists successfully transition to content marketing, brand strategy, PR, and social media management.

Do I need certifications to tutor or coach?

For general tutoring and writing coaching, certifications aren’t typically required—your experience and writing samples demonstrate your expertise. However, some roles, like paralegal work, do require formal certification. For tutoring platforms, you may need to pass their vetting process.

How do I find clients for writing side gigs?

Start with your existing network—former colleagues, sources, and professional contacts. Use LinkedIn to showcase your expertise. Join relevant professional organizations. Register with platforms like Wyzant (for tutoring) or freelance marketplaces. Speaking engagements and content marketing can also attract clients over time.

Is it realistic to start a side gig while working full-time?

Yes, most of these gigs offer flexibility. Tutoring, coaching, and consulting can be scheduled around your full-time job. The key is to set boundaries and be realistic about your capacity. Many people start with one or two clients and grow gradually.

Topics:

Be Inspired, Productivity

Productivity

7 Definitive Traits You Need for Startup Success

How to tell if you're truly ready to be a media mogul

By Amanda Ernst

8 min read • Originally published March 4, 2015 / Updated March 19, 2026

By Amanda Ernst

8 min read • Originally published March 4, 2015 / Updated March 19, 2026

With media jobs at a premium, that brilliant idea for a new media company that you’ve been batting for the past few months is starting to seem like your only way to break into the industry, escape your dead-end job or pull yourself out of unemployment.

But before you start hitting up your friends for angel investments, you should know if you have what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur.

You may think you have it figured out already. Sure, you’ve written a business plan and nailed down a URL, but according to entrepreneurs who have been through it and are still running thriving companies today, there are some things they never even thought of before launching their own company—and things they would do differently if they could.

Take their advice to heart: Here are seven traits you’ll definitely need for startup success.

1. An Ability to Work Well Alone

Entrepreneurship can be a lonely path, and a lot of people don’t realize how isolating it can be.

All of a sudden, there are no more meetings where you can afford to goof off or chat about X Factor around the water cooler. Before you quit your job determined to go solo, be sure you can indeed go solo.

Do you know how to encourage yourself and stay motivated? Can you set goals for yourself and stay focused without support from co-workers or a boss? Can you feel fulfilled by your work without getting praise from others?

If you answered “no” to any of those questions, you might not be ready to file as a sole proprietor just yet. Or, you just might need…

2. A Good Partner (Or Three)

Cezary Pietrzak was one of four friends who worked together to launch start-up travel site Wanderfly. He credits their friendship with getting the company off the ground.

“We found that we really enjoyed working together,” says Pietrzak. “I think that’s important in starting a company because you expect to spend a lot of time with other folks in your company and pull late hours, so you have to have a great relationship.”

Pietrzak’s experience shows that you shouldn’t underestimate the importance of a good partner.

If you’ve spent the last few years freelancing, you might be tempted to go it alone, but a partner can fill in skills or industry connections and know-how that you don’t have, keep you focused and contribute start-up capital, or just push you to launch an idea you’ve been talking about forever.

There’s a reason well-known companies like Johnson & Johnson and Procter & Gamble were started as partnerships. And, though it’s not a scientific study by any means, it’s pretty telling that all four entrepreneurs we spoke to for this article founded their companies with at least one other person.

In addition to finding partners who are smart, talented and hard working, here are some other things you should consider: Do you share personal and professional ideas, goals and values? Do you trust your partner? Where do you agree and disagree?

“In consulting they have the airplane seat rule: would you want to spend a long flight next to this person from New York to Singapore?” says Pietrzak. “You’re looking for people that you can just enjoy being around.”

3. Patience

Of course, you live, breathe and sleep your company—it’s your company.

But everyone else? Ehh…

Varying work ethics among your team means it could take longer than you anticipated to complete projects. Plus, there’s a lot of waiting around when it comes to bringing on clients, advertisers and users. Not everything can happen overnight.

According to the Small Business Administration, seven out of 10 new companies survive at least two years, half survive at least five years, one-third will make it 10 years and only 25 percent stay in business 15 years or more.

So while success is possible (and actually probable at least in the short term), unless you’re launching the next Pinterest, don’t expect to see results or even interest in your company immediately.

And not every company can be Pinterest; hundreds of thousands of new companies are launched every year, but only a handful become household names.

“Don’t expect things to happen on your timeline,” advises Tongal co-founder and president James DeJulio.

“Part of being an entrepreneur is being a creator. You’ve created something that wasn’t there before, and that’s a really powerful thing. You love it like it’s your baby; it’s all you think about all the time. So when someone is not thinking about it all the time, it’s not because they don’t want to do it, it’s just because it’s not their number one priority. And that’s fine. Just be patient. And as long as you stay on course it will all happen.”

4. Thriftiness

The first thing you’ll need to get your business off the ground is capital.

Whether that money is coming from your bank account, your partner, angel investors or a VC, you can’t be wasteful with your funding.

First, start-up capital should go to fund your business, hire a good team and keep the lights on. So, are you willing to forgo your own personal luxuries until the business takes off?

Start by finding a team that will help you stretch what money you have—a lawyer and accountant with small business know-how are key.

When you start to present your company and ideas to potential investors, you will want to assure them their money is in good hands and not being spent frivolously on expensive client lunches and tailored suits.

Get ready to answer questions about where investors’ money will be going and where it will make the most impact. Make that an important part of your business plan or marketing deck.

5. A Little Bit Of Business Know-How

When writers and editors try to launch new ventures, they sometimes get caught up in the larger mission of their project, possibly underestimating the importance of a business plan.

That’s what happened to Josh Benson and Tom McGeveran, co-founders of local New York news site Politico New York.

“The biggest challenge was probably figuring out how to do the non-editorial work necessary to make our idea into a business,” Benson says. “So, like, people who had actually started businesses before had to explain to us that the very nice mission statement we had come up with was not actually a ‘business plan.'”

But when developing your business plan, remember to keep it simple. Adds Benson, “Don’t do marketing-speak—it sounds as ridiculous to everyone else as it does to you.” In fact, Pietrzak suggests that all you need to pitch your company to potential investors is a 10-slide deck or Powerpoint presentation.

“It forces you to think about some of the key issues that VCs always ask about,” he says. “And it saves you time on the formality of writing something on paper, because you know your business is always going to change five different times before it catches real traction and starts to grow.”

If you don’t have a business background and want to learn the basics before launching your company, you should start with basic business management and accounting classes.

You can find courses at a local community college or online, or get training and support through organizations like the Small Business Administration.

6. Big Ideas…with Focus

“As entrepreneurs, we must constantly dream and have the conviction and obsession to transform our dreams into reality—to create a future that never existed before,” says Clara Shih, founder and CEO of Hearsay Social.

“People thought I was crazy when I was quoted in 2007 as saying that ‘five years from now, no enterprise application won’t be social.’ The idea seemed unfathomable then, but what I have come to realize is that, in Silicon Valley, anything is possible.”

But Shih also cautions against getting lost in all the possibilities of what you can achieve.

“The greatest startup advice I’ve ever received came from Thomas Layton, former OpenTable CEO and an early investor in Hearsay Social,” she says. “He told me the hardest thing about startups isn’t figuring out what to do but rather figuring out what not to do. Sometimes you’ll wish you could do everything—develop every product feature, expand to every market. But it’s just not possible.”

Investors are always intrigued by niche ideas that show potential. There is a small likelihood that your company will be the next Apple or Facebook, so think about what those companies are missing and try to fill in the gaps. What communities are underserved by products and services already on the market?

Also consider whether or not your idea is scalable. If it becomes popular, can you grow to meet demand?

7. An Ability to Adapt And, If Necessary, Accept Failure

Almost every successful entrepreneur can tell you a story of their first venture, which either wasn’t as successful as later endeavors or was a total flop. But true entrepreneurs are identifiable by their ability to see holes in the marketplace—and their own companies—and adapt.

Your company might be your baby, but you need to be able to step back and look at it with a critical eye if it’s not working, or not performing as well as you would have hoped.

And if at first you don’t succeed, don’t be afraid to start something new. For example, Tongal was the second entrepreneurial venture launched by DeJulio and his partners.

“We just kind of opened our eyes to what was possible through an investor in that first business, and then, the more we started thinking about it, the more we knew that this was where the real opportunity was,” he says.

“Most entrepreneurs usually fail or have a mild success before they are really successful.”

Topics:

Be Inspired, Productivity

Journalism Advice

Ask MB: How Do I Become a Topic Expert?

Turn yourself into every editor's go-to writer with these 9 tips

By Celeste Mitchell

Celeste Mitchell is an editorial writer and editor with nearly 30 years of experience creating consumer lifestyle content for publications including Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping, and SELF. She previously served as Deputy Editor at Cosmopolitan and taught journalism courses through Mediabistro.

4 min read • Originally published April 25, 2015 / Updated March 19, 2026

By Celeste Mitchell

4 min read • Originally published April 25, 2015 / Updated March 19, 2026

So here’s a question we’ve been hearing a lot: “I’m a freelance writer for magazines and newspapers, and my friends tell me I should develop an expertise. Does this make good business sense?”

Listen to your friends.

Becoming an expert is one of the smartest moves a freelance writer can make. It means that editors think of you first when they’re doling out assignments on a particular topic. And everyone wins in this scenario—editors get quality work (from you) and you get plum assignments (from them).

And how do you become a topic expert? Here are 9 tips:

1. Choose a specialty.

Pick a subject about which you feel passionately. If you’re not genuinely interested, skip it. You don’t want to settle into an area that will ultimately bore you.

20 years ago, writer Linda Marsa went in search of her specialty by covering a variety of subjects. “You have to try all kinds of things,” says Marsa, who writes about health and science for national magazines and newspapers. “Health suited me because I am detail-oriented. You have to triple-check everything for accuracy. I also have an activist bent. I can do stories that take a hard look at shenanigans in the medical field, and I give consumers useful information. This satisfies one of the reasons I became a journalist.”

2. Move laterally.

If you have a clip on one topic, use it to make a lateral move.

Try this trick from Marsa: “My original specialty was personal finance and I wanted to shift over to health, so I wrote a story about taking care of your parents during their sunset years. It was a finance piece but I used it as a health clip too.” That article helped her land an assignment on genetics for OMNI magazine. More projects with the magazine followed, including a contributing editor position writing about health.

3. Go through open doors.

Search for a toe-hold wherever you can find it. You only need one.

Writer Jodi Bryson found her start in covering the teen market from an independently published magazine called Girls’ Life. “I happened to see their very first issue on the newsstand, and I sent them a letter,” she says. She was asked to be a stringer and started churning out stories. Ten years later, she is an established go-to girl on teen topics.

4. Study your specialty.

Learn anything and everything about your specialty.

“You have to immerse yourself in the topic,” advises Bryson. “I want to know everything about teens and children. I tune in to Noggin and The WB. I know their music, their movies, their books and magazines and fashion. I need those cultural references when I’m writing. I also know the stuff like stats on teen pregnancy and other serious issues. I’m interested in all of it.”

5. Target specific publications.

Focus your efforts on getting printed in the recognized publications of your category.

An expertise in parenting, for example, would include titles such as Parenting, Parents, Child, Working Mother, American Baby, Parent & Child and Family Fun. For men’s fitness and body building, target titles like Men’s Health, Men’s Fitness, Flex, Monster Muscle, Ironman and Muscle & Fitness.

6. Just say yes.

Don’t be an assignment size snob.

Take every opportunity to write about your specialty and run with it. “Sometimes you take on projects that are not cost effective, but they become portfolio pieces you can use to sell yourself again and again,” says Marsa. “You have nothing to sell but your skills. Do short pieces and long pieces. You name it, do it.”

7. Become a columnist.

It’s hard to nail one of these, but writing a recurring column is a fast-track trick.

Even if it pays a pittance, it’s worth your time for other benefits: You build a library of clips (fast), and it demonstrates to editors at other publications that you know your stuff and can be trusted not to flake out. Pitch column ideas to small-circulation magazines, local newspapers, ‘zines and websites, all of which are often more open to starting new columns and taking chances with new writers.

8. Write a book.

Easier said than done, of course, but there’s nothing like a book to cement your credibility and distinguish you as an expert.

Since Marsa’s book Prescriptions for Profit was published in 1999, she has been known as the authority on drug development. The book took 2 and a half years to complete, but it led to TV and radio spots, magazine interviews and a part-time writing gig at the Los Angeles Times.

9. Market yourself.

“There’s a lot of PR work involved,” says Bryson, who regularly sends letters to editors she knows—and a few she doesn’t. “I’m not always soliciting work. Sometimes I write to introduce myself as an expert.”

Topics:

Go Freelance, Journalism Advice

Managing

How to Fix Your Brand’s Damaged Reputation: 15 Proven Strategies

From monitoring your online presence to building authority, learn practical steps to protect and restore your brand's reputation in the digital age.

By Fred Godlash

@fredgodo

Fred Godlash is a communications and marketing specialist based in LA.

6 min read • Originally published April 28, 2015 / Updated March 19, 2026

By Fred Godlash

@fredgodo

Fred Godlash is a communications and marketing specialist based in LA.

6 min read • Originally published April 28, 2015 / Updated March 19, 2026

Warren Buffett’s famous quote on reputation goes like this: “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.” Reputation is breakable and needs to be maintained, but with a little common sense and effort you can manage your brand’s view.

What are some of the things you can do to protect yourself against an attack on your brand? How do you take the steps to build and restore your brand’s damaged reputation? What defense do you have against personal attacks, customer complaints and blatant falsehoods? How can people get away with saying whatever they want on the Internet with little to no consequences for their actions?

We’re here to shed some light on these types of questions, so read on.

Unfair attacks on reputation are nothing new

Slander against companies and individuals is not a new subject. In the late 19th century, the expression “yellow journalism,” coined by New York Press editor Erwin Wardman, described how newspaper moguls, specifically Joseph Pulitzer II and William Randolph Hearst, would use misleading, sensationalized stories to improve circulation.

Hearst is the subject material that inspired Orson Welles to make the film Citizen Kane, based on the influence and corruption he acquired in the 1920s and 1930s.

Why can I say anything on the Internet?

Yellow journalism is still in the media today but, due to libel and slander laws, media outlets have to be careful about how they report the news. Unfortunately, the Internet does not have the same guidelines as print and television outlets.

In 1996 Congress passed the Communications Decency Act (CDA). The law was passed to try to regulate pornography and obscenity in cyberspace. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on your perspective, the law protects operators of Internet services by removing accountability. Websites hosting other people’s comments are not liable for the words of writers who post articles, reviews, feedback, complaints, libel statements, accusations, false claims, rip-off reports and insults.

The law keeps the spirit of free speech alive for the Internet but may enable immoral users to abuse the Web. Possibly due to so many anonymous attacks on companies, Google now gives preference to verified and identified user content and pushes the unknown authors back in the search results. Google also will remove defamatory statements from their search results.

Prevent damage by monitoring your brand

The top two ways of gauging your online reputation is by looking at the search engine results pages (SERP) and using Google Autocomplete. By staying ahead of any negative stories, you can take a proactive approach to protecting your reputation.

If you are seeing an issue emerge, you can go into Google Analytics and look for spikes in your site traffic that will point out key events and possible red flags.

Have a plan before fixing your reputation

Managing your reputation is a matter of organization and foresight. Make sure to set up Google alerts for all titles in question using brand names, product tags, popular misspellings (use analytics to find these), competitors, senior team leaders and key industry terms and popular search phrases. By discovering the problem, you can develop a solution.

Always have a well-thought-out plan for how to handle a reputation crisis. Sometimes the best fix to a problem is not to respond to the problem at all. Look to see if the offending website that hosts the negative comments about you will gain popularity by the rebuttals from the company or person trying to defend himself. If the site performs on other people’s comments, it may be a good idea not to respond at all.

Do not feed the fire.

Some say the only three laws for reputation management are authority, authority, authority. The more authority you have, the easier it is to make a big difference in where the stories will rank on the search page results. One way to establish authority is by building a social media reputation with a strong following.

This is not done by purchasing likes but by engaging with people as a thought leader or by being very transparent about your brand.

Also keep in mind that your authority can be built outside the Internet by participating in events, speaking engagements, becoming a sponsor and by joining charitable organizations. Depending on what type of outcome you are trying to achieve, authority can push your search results to page one, moving negative comments into oblivion.

There are other simple steps you can take to build or fix your reputation as it appears within search results:

Own Your Past. Address the elephant in the room. Acknowledge what the company has perceived to have done wrong. Apologize and have an action plan to make it right.
Control the conversation about your brand. And create an online crisis-listening program to catch increases in negative conversation before they reach bloggers and online media.
Understand complaints your brand already receives. Use social media to clarify customer misunderstandings, reducing overall complaints and building brand fans at the same time.
Adjust your social media response plan based on research, not emotion. Have analytics in place to help make an informed decision. Surges in traffic from websites like Reddit, where users can deliver anonymous content, can indicate a potential crisis developing.
Monitor employee complaint platforms. Glassdoor is one such resource.
Be proactive to prevent issues from turning into a crisis. Use decision trees that include the steps to take when an issue surfaces online or within the media for faster handling of potential issues.
Limit potential surprises. Own variations of your website URL, including negative versions (Yourbrandsucks.com).
Take complaints offline when possible. This ensures both a faster response for the customer, and less visibility about the issue at hand.
Be quick to apologize to customer complaints. Remember that a happy customer tells five fans, an unhappy customer tells 10, a fan who had an issue resolved tells 20. This is a great way to build super fans.
Be transparent when handling client issues. Transparency here means telling the customer what happened so they understand the issue. Don’t make up excuses.
Fix what you can! Understand which elements of the complaint you are able to fix and do so. Use this feedback to build a better mousetrap.
Use testimonials. Positive feedback from influencers can help boost any image problems.
Create quality subpages from your website. This will help push negative results down.
Reward loyal customers. Make your clients and supporters feel appreciated by giving them exclusive content, products or experiences.
Be patient. Building a good reputation doesn’t happen overnight. And rebuilding a damaged one is an even longer process.

The Internet has changed the way reputation is handled and perceived. While it takes millions of dollars and years to build a reputable brand, it only takes 45 seconds to create a Twitter account and potentially ruin an organization’s reputation online. Nothing is more important to a company’s health than managing your brand’s reputation.

Hiring for PR, media, or creative roles? Learn why general job boards miss the mark and what actually works. Read: Where to Post Media, Creative, and Design Jobs: What Employers Get Wrong

Topics:

Climb the Ladder, Managing

How did you make the move from corporate law to magazines?

No, you worked your way up to editor in chief! Then you moved on to Niche Media and later helped launch regional editions of Uptown, a luxury lifestyle magazine for African Americans. Why was bridal your next step?

And you’re the first African American to hold a top title at a Condé Nast publication. Is that something you think about?

We’ve all heard about Anna Wintour’s relatively new role as artistic director at Condé. Has she provided you with any input?

So then you find her approachable?

So what is your vision for Brides?

What advice do you have for freelancers interested in pitching the magazine?

Why did you leave TV reporting to pursue social activism?

So then how did you get started with your new mission?

How did your past play into your desire to tell these stories?

When did Go Inspire Go officially launch?

Tell me about some of the stories you’ve covered.

Why do you think GIG has made such an impact on people?

It must be pretty fun working at The Onion. How would you describe the culture, especially having been there so long?

Like so many other publications, The Onion has moved away from its roots in print. How has the company adapted to digital?

Great segue. How did the idea for Onion Labs come about and how did you land Microsoft as one of your first clients?

Is the tone of the content you create for brands always “Onion”-like on some level?

Do you have a separate creative team devoted to sponsored content?

Who produces your videos—and what platform do you use?

How else does Onion Labs incorporate social media?

Tell me about one of your most successful campaigns so far.

How do you handle native advertising when it comes to your own content?

How is ABC News online different from its TV counterpart and how has digital adapted over the years?

Are there specific mobile initiatives you’ve launched?

Is competition from other networks in the digital platform as aggressive as it often is for TV news?

Can you give me an example of how your digital team covers breaking news?

How else do you leverage social media?

Right, so then you are in the thick of it, like every other news outlet.

What advice do you have for aspiring journalists looking to break into digital news?

What would you say is best part of your job?

How does Off the Grid differ from other shows you’ve worked on, such as Jesse Ventura’s America on MSNBC?

So how would you describe the format of the show?

How did you end up on Ora TV? Why this platform?

Why do you think the major networks have ‘blackballed’ you?

Tell me about the topics you cover on your show.

One of your most-viewed interviews was with former New Jersey Superior Court Judge Andrew Napolitano. Why do you think that conversation was such a draw?

So is there any truth to you running for president in 2016?

Yes, and so hypothetically, what party would you run under? You used to be a Reform Party candidate.

What do you think of the media’s coverage of political issues?

Types of Food Media Jobs

Food Media Salaries

Food Stylist: Making Food Look Irresistible

How to Become a Food Stylist

Food Writer & Blogger: Carving Out a Niche

Types of Food Writing Jobs

How to Break Into Food Writing

Food Photographer: Building a Mouthwatering Portfolio

How to Become a Food Photographer

Food Content Creator: The Modern Path

Platforms for Food Content Creators

How to Build a Food Content Career

Food Copywriter: Crafting the Right Words

How to Break Into Food Media

1. Build a Portfolio

2. Develop Food Knowledge

3. Assist Established Professionals

4. Network in the Industry

5. Pitch Relentlessly

6. Take Entry-Level Positions

Where to Find Food Media Jobs

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I get a job in food media?

What jobs are there in food media?

How much do food media jobs pay?

Do I need culinary training to work in food media?

How do I become a food stylist?

Can I make a living as a food blogger?

What skills do I need for food photography?

How do I get published in food magazines?

1. Youth Writing Instructor

2. Private Tutor

3. Business Writing Coach

4. Publishing Consultant

5. Brand Marketing Consultant

6. Social Media Manager

7. Paralegal

8. Turn Your Passion Into a Side Gig

Quick Comparison: Side Gigs for Writers

FAQs About Side Gigs for Writers

What are the best side hustles for writers?

**So what is your vision for Brides?**

**How does Off the Grid differ from other shows you’ve worked on, such as Jesse Ventura’s America on MSNBC?**