So What Do You Do, Soledad O&#8217;Brien, Journalist and CEO of Starfish Media Group?

So What Do You Do, Soledad O’Brien, Journalist and CEO of Starfish Media Group?

Award-winning journo on teaching, business, and making the news

@thegirlcanwrite

Janelle Harris is a multimedia producer, director, and founder of Harris Two Productions with decades of experience in non-fiction storytelling for networks including Bravo, Discovery, and A&E. A Howard University graduate, she specializes in amplifying diverse voices across television, film, and digital media.

9 min read • Originally published October 15, 2015 / Updated March 19, 2026

@thegirlcanwrite

9 min read • Originally published October 15, 2015 / Updated March 19, 2026

Significant news stories aren’t necessarily guaranteed a space in the annals of public memory — they’re emblazoned there by gifted reporters.

Soledad O’Brien is one of those journalistic storytellers who uses human interest pieces to thread us together by commonalities.

Flanked by passion and a self-proclaimed love of learning, she’s been on the frontlines of the biggest news events for 25 years and has given us insight into some of our most under-reported communities.

In June, she launched Starfish Media Group, a multiplatform company dedicated to uncovering and producing empowering stories and cultivating talent, production and distribution deals with major partners, including HBO, Al Jazeera America and CNN.

The many faces of Soledad make her a media chameleon. Soledad the anchor for HBO’s Real Sports. Soledad the CNN reporter. Soledad the face of the Black in America and Latino in America series. Indeed, she’s all of those things and more. Here, she talks teaching, business building and literally making the news.

Name: Soledad O’Brien
Position: Founder and CEO, Starfish Media Group
Resume: Launched career in 1987 as associate producer and news writer at WBZ-TV in Boston. Left to work at NBC News as producer for Nightly News and Weekend Today. Started at MSNBC in 1996; started reporting for Nightly News a year later. Anchored Weekend Today. Transitioned to CNN in 2003 as co-anchor of American Morning. Won Peabody Awards for coverage of Hurricane Katrina and BP oil spill, an Alfred I duPont-Columbia University Award for her coverage of the South Asian tsunami and Emmys for coverage of Haiti, 2012 election and “Kids on Race.” Founded Starfish Media Group in June 2013 as CEO. Serves as distinguished visiting fellow at Harvard University. Authored two books: Latino in America and The Next Big Story: My Journey Through the Land of Possibilities.
Birthday: September 19, 1966
Hometown: St. James, N.Y.
Education: Bachelor’s degree from Harvard
Marital status: Married
Media idol: Nick Cannon. “His philosophy is very similar to mine, which is to exist across many platforms and do everything with excitement and enthusiasm… I think that there’s something in his philosophy on how he’s running his company that makes a lot of sense.”
Favorite TV shows: Newsroom, Breaking Bad and Scandal
Guilty pleasure: Gummy bears (or worms or fish) and other sugary snacks
Last book read: A Marker to Measure Drift by Alexander Maksik
Twitter handle: @Soledad_OBrien

What skills are you using as the head of a media company that you didn’t or couldn’t as a journalist? How did you know you possessed them in the first place?

I definitely manage more people. I was a reporter, which meant I was a producer in the field. Now that I’m running a company, I’m running it on all fronts: payroll, making money, staffing. Those are things I never did as a reporter, but that’s the basis of running an organization.

That said, I think you pick up a lot of those skills from motherhood. You manage a lot when you’re a parent. You keep everyone on track and figure out who’s happy and are they in the right spot and what needs to be done for each child. I learned a ton about how you keep the train running smoothly by having four kids. There’s a lot of overlap in those people-management skills.

You’ve said that Starfish Media Group allows you to explore topics that you care deeply about. How would a broader adoption of that model affect journalism as a whole?

In a way, I think what you’re seeing already among viewers is that exact model. People are interested in things not necessarily covered by the mainstream media, so they download things online. The categories are growing because people find out that they’re not able to get information about stories that are of interest to them on the evening news. So I think that’s already in place and it’s only going to become more so.

I’m amazed at the degree to which people are interested in the documentaries that we’ve done. I flew out yesterday and sat next to a guy who only wanted to talk about the documentary I did, Gay in America. That’s been years ago. I gave a speech about Latino in America to a bunch of college students.

I think that there’s a sense of “I have a story to tell” or “I would like to see my story reflected” somewhere, especially in a nation that’s more and more demographically diverse.

What would the field look like if journalists could spend the bulk of their time reporting on their areas of passion? How would that translate to the information and the consumers of that information?

I’ll give you an example. Let’s talk about a “shut down the government” story. Most channels are going to be sitting in D.C. going back and forth like, “Here’s John Boehner and the president.” That’s really going to be your coverage, as if the entire world revolves around Washington. As much as they can shut down the government, the impact is not going to be felt solely there. You could tell that story through the communities that are going to be affected. I think that right there, if you told it that way, you could really change the debate that’s going on in the news.

Stories, as we’re taught in journalism school early on, are told through people. Those stories make our documentaries powerful. You can explore someone’s culture, you can explore their experience, you can explore an issue through human beings who are going through it.

It opens up all of these doors to think about it, talk about it, explore it, experience it. A lot of times I just don’t see that as being the case.

When the announcement was handed down that Starfish Media Group will be partnering with Al Jazeera, the news was met with some criticism. Despite the patriotic grumblings, what do you think American news outlets can learn from their brand of storytelling and news delivery?

I think every news organization can learn from another news organization that’s doing it well. We’ve been doing some pieces for Al Jazeera — I’m a special correspondent for their America Tonight show — and I think they’ve done a really good job of pushing for a more nuanced approach and storytelling through human beings. I’ve been impressed that they’ve wanted to focus on the story and digging into the truth.

My most recent one took a look at the money that filtered through Haitians having very different experiences trying to rebuild their lives. I think that’s the way to tell those stories, not through Congress people who will be yelling back and forth when they do a hearing on Haiti in a month and a half. So I think Al Jazeera TV has to grow an audience and get carriage, but I think the work that they’re doing is quality.

What qualities do you look for in partner networks and opportunities? You seem to have embraced quite a variety.

People who do what they say they’re going to do, first and foremost. The world is just full of people who are bullshitters. The nice thing about getting older is that you start to see through those who are all talk and no action.

We’re busy. We have a lot of pieces to produce and docs to work on. I only want to be surrounded by people who also want to get busy and work and have ideas and stories that they genuinely want to bring to fruition.

I’m also not interested in people who want to complain. My mom used to say, “You get to complain for 24 hours and then let’s go.” You need to offload those people and take on others who are really enthusiastic. Being an entrepreneur is a mindset. You have to see things as opportunities all the time. I like to do interviews. I like to push people on certain topics. I like to dig into the stories where there’s not necessarily a right or wrong answer.

We don’t end our stories with: “There, we’ve solved racism. Thanks for joining us.” My partners and I are interested in quality journalism and digging into tough-as-nails conversations.

What’s the most important takeaway you want all viewers to get from the stories of people of color?

That the world is very wide and that, if you dig a little deeper, every community has lots of stories to tell and issues to debate — not just the two or three or four that you might see on the news. They’re very nuanced and complicated and important. People are already having conversations about them in their communities and if you covered that community, you would know this.

Now you’re a Distinguished Visiting Fellow teaching a class at Harvard’s School of Education. What do you want to prepare them to do specifically?

As much as I hate saying it, the cliché about life being a journey is true. When you allow it to be, you get to enjoy it a lot more. I think a lot of these students — and me too, probably — like to know, “Why?” Young people just want an answer. “What should I be studying? What will make me happy? Will there will be jobs in 10 years?” I say, “I don’t know. Figure out your passion.”

In a commencement speech at Harvard earlier this year, you told grads not to “listen to others people’s take on the life you should lead” because “by not listening, you can figure out what your heart is telling you to do.” Can you give an example of when you had to follow your own advice?

Oh my gosh. I have to follow it all the time. When I was leaving NBC News to go to CNN, people would say, “What?! Why would you possibly leave the Today Show to go to cable?” If I would’ve listened to people, I would’ve been on a great platform but I wouldn’t have grown as a journalist. So far, most of the steps in my career have been really good.

When I was at CNN, the opportunity to do the morning show, Starting Point, came up. I had done a morning show before. It’s grueling hours. And people were like, “Do you really want to do this again?” I thought, “Well it’s an interesting time. It’ll be an election year.” I would say modestly that a lot of the big political news made that year was done on my show. We really had impact. That’s what you want to be able to do. It’s less about the situation and more about how you’re handling it.

Even when I started Starfish Media Group, there were a number of people who were sort of perplexed: “What are you doing? Who are you working for?” It’s not a model that other people really do and I have been amazed at the huge opportunities we’ve had.

My biggest challenge has been so many things coming to us that are not TV news, which is really my comfort zone. I do news. I do documentaries. There are so many interesting projects that you constantly have to start thinking outside the box and say, “Well, maybe I should be working on a movie. Maybe I should be helping someone write a screenplay. Maybe I should be doing fiction.” I just never realized that beyond TV news, which I love, and doing documentaries, which I love, there’s this whole tremendous amount of content that people are interested in either creating or funding or underwriting or finding out how to distribute. That’s been fascinating for me.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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Hey, How’d You Establish Yourself as The Budget Fashionista and founder of digitalundivided, Kathryn Finney?

How Finney styled a media career from a love for frugal fashion

@thegirlcanwrite

7 min read • Originally published October 15, 2015 / Updated March 19, 2026

@thegirlcanwrite

7 min read • Originally published October 15, 2015 / Updated March 19, 2026

If you live in Any Metropolis, USA, coming out of the neighborhood coffee shop with a frappuccino and a cheese danish for less than $20 can be a study in quantitative economics. So buying an entire outfit that’s both street legal and stylish for the same price seems more than a little unlikely.

Kathryn Finney proves that it can be done. And she doesn’t just do it herself — she teaches readers of her uber-popular blog, The Budget Fashionista, how to do it too. Growing from a hobby to a respected resource racking up more than a million monthly hits, TheBudgetFashionista.com has made Finney, a former epidemiologist, into a multimedia maven — and a wealthy one at that.

Recently named one of AOL’s Top 10 Women in Money, she’s written a bestselling book, How to be a Budget Fashionista: The Ultimate Guide to Looking Fabulous for Less, and has been featured in more than 600 magazines, all based on one fundamental concept: being stylish has nothing to do with how much you spend but how well you wear what you have. Now, Finney is the founder and managing director of digitalundivided, a social enterprise helping urban entrepreneurs build companies.

Here, the native Midwesterner talks about her entrepreneurial path, building her personal brand, and why her blood runs red for Target.

How did you create the concept for The Budget Fashionista?

At the time, I was living in Philly, and I was broke. All my friends lived in New York, so I would spend time at the King of Prussia Mall and Franklin Mills [Mall] and I would come to the city and go to sample sales. And sometimes I wouldn’t even buy, but I would just write about the stuff that I was seeing or how I was able to do an outfit on $20. I would go into the stores and watch other people shop and talk to the associates and see when they put things on sale and [ask], ‘How can I get this coupon even though I don’t have the credit card?’ I would just use that for content in the blog.

So how did you use a multimedia platform to grow it and get your name out there? How does everything flow together?

The way we tie it all together is just being really consistent in the message, which is real fashion for real women with real budgets. So whether I’m on the Today show or writing for the site, the message doesn’t change. I go to the outlets. If you see me on the street, what I’m wearing, I got on sale. I don’t write about $5 jeans from Wal-Mart and wear $5,000 shoes.

That’s not who I am. Me being the spokesperson for the site and being The Budget Fashionista also helps connect everything because I don’t look like a lot of my friends who are “fashion experts.” I’m very much a real woman. The fact that I look different definitely helps tie the brand across all the different platforms we operate.

What would you say was the pivotal point in your entrepreneurial journey, when things really started to take off?

I worked full-time up until we got the book deal in 2004 because that’s when I realized that this was a serious business. I was like, ‘OK, I’m getting a substantial amount of money to write a book on this. This is real.’ That’s when I started to do The Budget Fashionista full-time. I’m the CEO.

I always have to explain that to people because they’re like, ‘Oh, you’re a blogger’ and I’m like, ‘No, not really. I do write for the blog, but there’s a lot of other stuff that we do.’ There are other projects I’m working on like the book and television, and we’re also working on a line for one of the shopping networks. So it’s a company.

You had great support from your family and friends when you started, but did you have professional roadblocks or obstacles?

Oh, of course. I’m a big black woman from the Midwest running a media company. That alone should tell you. It’s like sure, do I get road-blocked? Of course. Do people have problems because of my identity? Sure. Do I let it stop me? Hell no. And you just have to sort of realize that’s their problem, not yours, and push forward. And that’s what I’ve done.

Recession and budget-friendly topics are in vogue right now. How have you been able to stave off competitors?

For one, I shop at Wal-Mart. I shop at Target. A lot. I’m from Minnesota. That’s where Target’s from, so it’s in my blood. So when I write or go on television, I know what I’m talking about. It’s not some assistant writing notes for me. And while we do have a showroom for these stores and these brands, I actually prefer to go in the store. I like to see what the consumer is buying. What do you buy when you go into Wal-Mart or Target or H&M? What are you getting there?

Because I can go into the showroom and see the stuff, which is great, and the publicist will give me their shpiel. But that’s not the same as what you the consumer buy. For two, we maintain relationships with people. We try to be fair. We might not always write what they want us to write, but our criticisms are fair.

Is there anything you would have done differently now in retrospect as you built The Budget Fashionista?

When I started, there was no roadmap. The Internet was kind of like the poor, bastard cousin — I won’t even say child — of the media family. No one really gave a crap about us. I think what I probably would have done is focus on building more relationships sooner with some of the online properties and print. There’s so many things I would’ve done different in hindsight but yet, it’s all led me here. So I have to have an appreciation for the mistakes.

What’s been your biggest fashion faux pas in the past?

There was a story about me in The New York Times when my husband and I moved from Philadelphia to New York. Look at that picture and you’ll see. It’s that and if you go on my YouTube page, my very first Today show, I seriously looked like a clown slash drag queen.

It was scary. I had somebody do my makeup who didn’t know anything about doing makeup for television. This all happened within a week of each other. And then finally, I sat down with a friend who does a lot of television and he helped me map out a look.

What are some things that other people do that absolutely drives you crazy?

I hate, hate, hate those low-rise jeans that I see young women wearing and sort of stuffing themselves into. Like, you need a bigger size. And the whole hipster look, I just feel like they’re trying too hard to be sort of like grungy dirty. It’s like, ‘Oh look at me, I wear my plaid shirt and my skinny jeans. Look, I’m ironic. I wear a trucker hat.’ I feel like they’re trying too hard to have a look. Other than that… maybe jeggings, because I just think they’re stupid.

Online advertising has taken a real hit, and many sites are going back to instituting paywalls. What are your sites’ main sources of income — anything outside of just display ads?

Well, we do a lot of stuff offline. I have spokesperson relationships with Marshall’s, TJ Maxx. I’ve worked for Sears, PayPal, Charming Shops, Payless — I mean, you name it, we have people that we’ve worked with. We’ve done social media campaigns, I’ve done television campaigns. I just did a big TV thing for Tide for their Tide to Go pen. We’ve really diversified. Online is my bread and butter, that’s my foundation, it’s where I come from. But it’s not the only thing that I do.

Kathryn Finney’s tips for establishing yourself as a fashion expert:

1. Do your homework. “Fashion isn’t just, ‘Oh, I’m a great shopper.’ You need to understand the human body and be able to assess what looks good on someone else.”
2. Design and style for people. “If you can’t get anybody to pay you, ask your family or friends if you can do it [for them] for free. You’ll gain firsthand knowledge on how to dress and work with real women.”
3. Be original. “Assess what’s already out there and ask real people — not family members — what they think of your idea. If no else is buying into it, then your idea is probably not as good as you think it is.”
4. Make connections. “Get a mentor and try to meet as many people in the industry as you can.”
5. Get a life. “A lot of my ideas I get when I’m not [online], just enjoying life and being present and spending time with the people that I love and care about.”

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Topics:

Advice From the Pros, Be Inspired

So What Do You Do, Sara Shepard, Author of Pretty Little Liars?

The YA scribe shares her secrets to success

@AndreaWillWrite

Andrea Williams is an author, journalist, and columnist for The Tennessean with over 16 years of experience in journalism and 20 years in copywriting and communications strategy. Her work spans national outlets and high-traffic digital brands.

8 min read • Originally published October 15, 2015 / Updated March 19, 2026

@AndreaWillWrite

8 min read • Originally published October 15, 2015 / Updated March 19, 2026

The thought of zit-filled yearbook photos, SAT anxiety and awkward interactions with the opposite sex are enough to banish any and all high school recollections to the farthest corners of most people’s minds. The thought of zit-filled yearbook photos, SAT anxiety and awkward interactions with the opposite sex are enough to banish any and all high school recollections to the farthest corners of most people’s minds.

Yet, in the ultimate creative sacrifice, Sara Shepard regularly revisits her adolescence, poring over old journals and gathering enough teenage angst to inspire two bestselling fiction series, Pretty Little Liars and The Lying Game, and their TV spinoffs.

With more than 20 books published (in eight years!), Shepard is one of the hottest writers in the blazing YA genre. But make no mistake; she’s more than just mean-girl cliques and homecoming drama. The uber-prolific scribe also has an adult novel on the way — for those of us who prefer to keep the past in the past.

Name: Sara Shepard
Position: Author
Resume: From 2000 to 2005 worked at Time, Inc. Custom Publishing, producing lifestyle magazines for corporate clients. Started ghostwriting as a freelancer in 2002 and writing her own books in 2005.
Birthdate: April 8
Hometown: Pittsburgh
Education: B.S. from NYU (1999), MFA from Brooklyn College (2004)
Marital status: Single
Media idol: This American Life host Ira Glass. “I love the way he tells stories.”
Favorite TV shows: Mad Men, Girls, Modern Family
Guilty pleasure: “Lying around by myself reading with nobody bothering me”
Last book read: The Burgess Boys by Elizabeth Strout
Twitter handle: @sarabooks

Why did you decide to write in the young adult genre? Were you ever concerned that your decision wouldn’t prove as lucrative or that your work would be less acclaimed as books in the adult genre?

Of course, yeah. I mean, it definitely crossed my mind. The way it happened was sort of by accident. I was going to school to get an MFA in fiction, and I absolutely thought that I was going to be an adult fiction writer, and at the time I was living in New York and took a freelance job ghostwriting a book for 17th Street Productions (now they’re Alloy Entertainment).

So that was a young adult book, and, being a ghostwriter on that, I did learn how to write a book from start to finish, what it was like to be edited and how to write on deadline and all of those things. And, after kind of doing a couple of those books, I kind of realized that I liked YA.

It was a voice that I really embraced, and it was a genre that I was really interested in. And I realized, too, that a lot of my adult fiction — my short stories that I was writing and all that — also were about younger characters. I was like, “Well, let me give this a try.” I was approached by Alloy to develop my own series, which became Pretty Little Liars.

So, there was definitely [the question of] will I be as serious a writer if I’m writing YA and not adult. It definitely crossed my mind. However, I do have a couple of adult novels out as well, and I was really insistent on that for myself. When I was working on Pretty Little Liars 2, I was also working on The Visibles, because it was almost like I wanted to prove to myself that, although I was a YA writer, I also could write adult fiction.

Now it doesn’t bother me as much, because YA is different now, I think, than even the way it was when I started out [in] 2005. I mean, YA is a huge thing now. I think good YA writers are absolutely respected, and a successful YA book does really well. So, I don’t think anybody should be discouraged from going into YA.

What’s the secret for writing books that resonate with teens, as an adult?

That is definitely hard. When I started out, I spoke to a lot of kids online. There wasn’t the same sort of Web presence either; it was MySpace and chat rooms and stuff like that. But the thing is, the emotions that they feel, they’re sort of the same emotions that I felt as a teenager. I kept a journal when I was a teenager, so I definitely look back on those to see how I dealt with friends, and cliques, and getting picked on, or boyfriend breakups.

I think as long as you’re taking your own emotional experience as a teenager and trying to remember what it was like and not approaching it as an adult, that’s the key. I’ve read a lot of fiction from writers just starting out, and the dialogue is a little bit forced, or it’s almost too teenager-y, or too slang-y or putting too much technology or trends in there.

I try to stay pretty trend-neutral. I try not to mention too many current bands or current TV shows. [I] gotta mention phones, obviously, and Twitter and Instagram and all that, but you want to create something that can be timeless as much as possible, so that it doesn’t seem dated 15 years from now.

What’s the best way to write a series? Do you plan each book far in advance or let the characters lead you into each new entry?

I plan the books pretty far in advance. The way Pretty Little Liars works — [and] really anything else that I’ve worked on — I knew at first it was going to be four books, so I knew that at the end of the fourth book I was going to have to reveal who “A” was, who the killer was and stuff like that.

The next deal was for another four books, and then there’s the next deal, which was for four books. So it’s not like I planned to do these 16 books. So, I’m giving more of like a four-book arc, and then some new, horrible thing happens and it starts all over again. But, I have a sense of where they’re getting to at the end of each book.

How do you keep long-running series like The Lying Game and Pretty Little Liars fresh? Do you ever get sick of writing about the same characters?

That’s hard. I’ll come up with a scenario, and then I’ll be like, ‘Oh, no! Wait a minute; that happened to Hanna in book four, or whatever.’ It’s definitely getting harder. I’m revising No. 14 right now; you know, that’s 14 books. That’s a lot of individual stories, because there are four main characters, and they all each have their own story.

I know them so well now; I know what their weaknesses are; I know their default desires and how each of them get in trouble. It’s all different for each of them, so it’s usually just a twist on that… But, I mean, I don’t see the series lasting for too much longer. It’s like, “These poor girls, what else needs to happen to them?”

For writers, a blank page can be paralyzing, yet you’re churning out multiple books a year. What are your top three tips to help other writers write more?

Well, I am a big outliner. For my adult book, The Visibles, I did not outline, and it took me two years to write because I just didn’t outline and I had no path. The other thing is, because I have really crazy deadlines, I have to write everyday. So, I can’t just sit there and stare at the page. So what I usually do is, I write something. Even if it’s bad, even if I go back later, and I’m like, “This is such a bad chapter, and I’m going to have to revise it,” having words down is better than having nothing, for me anyway.

Again, it’s sort of like a guideline. The other thing that I do, too, is if something isn’t quite making sense to me, or if I’ve written a chapter and I know it’s not good, I don’t continue to sit at my desk. For example, I’m a big runner; I like to run five, six miles every day. So I will go running, and lately I consider it part of the process, because while I’m running I actually get ideas. I don’t even really do it for fitness anymore.

How were you able to get both Pretty Little Liars and The Lying Game optioned as TV shows?

That is the brilliance of Alloy Entertainment. Gossip Girl was one of their [shows], and Vampire Diaries, so they have a lot of ties with TV. When [Pretty Little Liars] sold in 2005, there was some talk that it was going to be developed for TV, and I got kind of the big head about it. I was like, “It’s gonna be on TV!”, and then nothing happened for a long time, and I just kinda felt foolish.

So I wrote eight books in five years, and Alloy came in and said ABC Family is developing a script, and they’re going to shoot a pilot. So I was really surprised, because I just thought it was one of those things that came up and then never surfaced again. So that was really exciting, and they got a great crew of people to work on it, and I really love the show. The Lying Game being on TV sort of, I think, came on the heels of that because it was like there was one mystery that worked for ABC Family, so they wanted to try another one.

Have you been satisfied with the shows, or do you feel that some of your creative vision was lost in translation to the TV screen?

With Lying Game, I guess so, although I think it’s a good show, and I think the characters… I think that still feels like the vision. The concept is different, and that’s a little bit sad. But I don’t know if it would have worked for TV anyway, so maybe that’s a good thing. It might have been a total disaster, because in the books there’s a character who’s dead, and she’s the narrator, and that might have been silly doing it on TV.

I don’t know, but Pretty Little Liars I’m really satisfied with. Pretty Little Liars more sticks to what the books are. They take their own liberties, and sometimes their ideas are just great. Sometimes I’m like, “Oh, why didn’t I think of that?” So that’s always really fun. But, I mean, it’s just pretty amazing to see it on TV at all. Even if it wouldn’t have lasted a season, it still would have been this pretty incredible thing.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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So What Do You Do, Bevy Smith, Host of Bravo’s Fashion Queens?

How this ad director became a TV host

@thegirlcanwrite

10 min read • Originally published October 15, 2015 / Updated March 19, 2026

@thegirlcanwrite

10 min read • Originally published October 15, 2015 / Updated March 19, 2026

There are some TV personalities who, perhaps unbeknownst to them, become “friends” to their fans and viewers. You know how it is — the rational part of you realizes they couldn’t pick you out of a two-person lineup, but they’re just so darn likeable the imaginative part of you feels like you could just call them up and invite them to dinner.

That’s the Bevy Smith Effect: scintillating, jump-off-the-screen personality that has endeared her to people from all backgrounds and propelled her transition from a 17-year career in advertising to TV show hostess and style aficionada.

Here, the native New Yorker talks professional shape-shifting, the power of networking and being generally spectacular.For her next professional reinvention, she plans to parlay that ultramagnetic charisma and on-screen experience into stand-up comedy and acting.

It’s a set of goals she intended to accomplish years ago — until legendary acting coach Susan Batson convinced Smith that playing the part of herself was going to make her a star. “She said that who I am is character enough, that I am the book and the movie already.

She told me I could work right now as I am,” Smith remembers. Having done that with a 28-episode deal for Fashion Queens on Bravo and on-air talent gigs for VH1, E!, BET and TV One, among others, her in-demand expertise in pop culture and fashion stands out in an army of contemporaries, proving there’s just something about Bevy.

Name: Bevy Smith
Position: TV show hostess, writer, style expert, motivational speaker and entrepreneur
Resume: Started career in 1989 as a receptionist at Jeff McKay, Inc., in New York City. Promoted first to media planner, then to media director in 10-year tenure working with luxury brands like Shiseido and Via Spiga, and outlets like Vanity Fair and Vogue. Hired as fashion advertising director at Vibe. Developed a client list of high-end beauty and fashion advertisers, including Dior, Armani, Dolce & Gabbana and Prada. Offered position at Rolling Stone as senior director of fashion advertising, where she worked for a year. Became fashion editor-at-large for Vibe, representing the brand as an entertainment and lifestyle expert. Oversaw celebrity fashion shoots and wrote monthly “V Style” column. Founded Dinner with Bevy series to bring together entertainers and media professionals, from Quincy Jones to Chelsea Handler. Contributed freelance articles to Paper, Essence, Vibe Vixen, Interview and Glamour. Featured as on-air talent for various cable networks. Named co-host for Bravo’s Fashion Queens in 2013.
Birthdate: November 2, 1966
Hometown: Harlem
Marital status: Single
Media mentor: Ryan Seacrest. “I love that he has created this multi-tiered media empire, including his own advertising agency. He buys media, creates advertising for his clients, then places the ads that his agency created on his own radio show. That’s pretty impressive.”
Best career advice received: “What I learned is if you do good work and stay above the fray, you’ll be successful.”
Last book read: Undisputed Truth by Mike Tyson
Guilty pleasure: 70s soft rock
Twitter handle: @bevysmith

You left a high-profile job and 17 years in magazine advertising to reinvent yourself as a TV personality. Why?

I’m a goal-oriented person. Once I conquer a goal, it’s time to go. I was at Rolling Stone in pretty much the same position I was in at Vibe except it was a bigger title and bigger pay. I’m not talking about a 10 percent raise. It was a significant amount, but I was miserable. It was just like, ‘I don’t want to do this anymore.’

It’s important to know, though, that it wasn’t really about Rolling Stone. I was only there for a year and I was already fed up by the time I got there. I didn’t want to do that particular profession anymore. I wanted my new self to be a free spirit. I wanted her to be creative. I craved freedom and a life filled with exploration. I had a lot of writer friends, and I loved the way they lived. Now, they didn’t make any money, but I loved the fact that they had their days free.

I felt like I could do that and make money. I read The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron and one of the biggest takeaways, besides always living your life as a child and having a sense of wonder, was that ‘the starving artist’ is totally BS. You can actually feed your creativity and feed yourself quite well.

You’d been on the advertising side of magazines, but how did you get into writing for major titles?

When I quit Rolling Stone, I quit with the idea that I was going to pursue TV and I was going to write. I was going to become an actress, I was going to do photography, I was going to travel the world and do whatever made me happy. As soon as I quit, I went to South Africa, Zambia, Brazil and Costa Rica for three months. I had an amazing time and cleansed myself of my corporate life.

When I came back, I got a phone call from my dear friend Mimi Valdés, who at the time was the editor-in-chief of Vibe. She said, ‘We would love to have you back.’ Whenever VH1 or BET needed someone to come on and talk about the fab life of XYZ R&B or hip-hop star, I wanted to be the person from Vibe that went on. So I did that and I built up my reel, and that’s also how I started writing.

I have dear friends over at Paper, too — Kim Hastreiter, David Hershkovits and Mickey Boardman — and they were like, ‘We would love for you to write for us.’ The first thing I ever wrote for them was a cover story about Rihanna’s ‘Good Girl Gone Bad.’ I [was] one of the first people to talk to her as she was making herself a unique entity.

Word is you were originally approached to be on Tim Gunn’s Guide to Style. What happened to that opportunity and how did you eventually land Fashion Queens?

I told everyone that I was looking to do TV. I had all these incredibly connected friends that were always trying to introduce me to some agent or executive, but I didn’t use them much. Then a friend said, ‘You’re going to get a call from Bravo. They have a new show with Tim Gunn and you’re going to audition.’ I was nervous, but no matter how nervous I am, I go for it. I got the gig. That was maybe a year into my new life journey. It’s incredible to be offered a show on a top-rated cable network with an icon of fashion.

I was on my way to speak at a women’s symposium and it just so happened that the woman who was leading the panel was a former TV executive, so I asked her if she minded looking at the contract. She said, ‘It’s really bad.’ Then I sent it to Monique Chenault, my television mentor. She really believed in me. She said, ‘Oh Bevy, I want this for you, but this is really bad.’ I turned it over to my lawyer to negotiate it, but they weren’t budging on anything. Nothing.

That taught me a valuable lesson. Even though it was a big deal, I turned it down. I never thought when I did that it would take me five years to get another show. Then [Bravo network exec and host] Andy Cohen called and said, ‘I’m going to find something for us to do together.’ Every year since, he’s put me in some kind of Bravo pilot or show. He’s always been a champion of mine.

But it still took a while for things to take off. Did you feel pressure to stop being selective?

I was invited to be on The Janice Dickinson Show and I was like, ‘I don’t want to do reality. I definitely don’t want to do it with a mean woman who is a bit of a racist.’ I felt like it was a set up for me to fight Janice Dickinson on TV.

Then I got an offer to do another show going into fashion boutiques and helping them build their businesses, which is right up my alley because I’m actually in the business of fashion. I’m a little bit of a commitment phobe — that’s how you wind up 47 and single — and it took me a long time to sign the damn contract. When I finally did, the production company and Oxygen couldn’t come to terms, so that deal went away. I had lots and lots of opportunities, especially for reality TV.

Critics have fired shots about the stereotyping of gay men on Fashion Queens, particularly your co-hosts Derek J and Miss Lawrence. You’ve been a longtime advocate for the LGBT community, so how did you digest those comments?

I’ve seen what people are saying about my boys and I really take offense. If they’re being true to who they really are, then what would we have them do? That’s the way they feel comfortable expressing themselves. That’s not something that Bravo makes them do. They found them in high heels with handbags.

So I don’t feel that they’re being exploited. If the cameras weren’t on, they would be dressed that way. I think it’s sad that there’s that kind of self-loathing, even within that community. If it’s something you truly enjoy, why should you worry about how it’s going to look? At the end of the day, we’re here to make sure that we’re pleasing ourselves and not hurting others. There are certain things I would never do on TV, which is why I wouldn’t do a reality show about my life. But other than that, honey, let’s go. I want to do what I like and I think that’s what my boys are doing. They’re doing what they like.

What was your original vision for Dinner with Bevy and how has it evolved?

Well, my original vision was to bring urban music artists into the fashion fold. Now you see Future, A$AP Rocky and those guys, but in the 90s when [former Vibe editor-in-chief] Emil Wilbekin and I were going to Paris and Milan, there were no black artists — none — except who we brought over. I would take artists to fashion shows and introduce them to the heads of fashion houses. I saw there was a real need, so I created a dinner party series.

The music labels hired me and I would show up at dinner with designers, people in communications, people who can lend the clothes and editors from general market magazines like Vogue, W, GQ, Esquire. I knew they would come because I had amazing relationships with them and they knew they would have a good time. Some of my greatest events ended in full-on dance parties with people really connecting. When you break bread for three hours and there’s good food and the music is going, baby, magic happens.

You weren’t a 20-something starlet when you launched into the on-air portion of your career. Do you see a shift in the way networks are valuing experienced women?

Oh yes, definitely. I think the shift is really not so much about age; it’s about personality.

Gone are the days when you could just be a news reader, like ‘Hello, good evening. Welcome to…,’ that formal kind of thing. Even news is infused with opinion now, so it’s important to be able to offer your opinion in an articulate and entertaining way. People are looking for real. Once upon a time, the gorgeous, 20-something Miss Indiana starlet would’ve been the one getting all the big TV jobs. Do we see a lot of beautiful but vapid girls anymore? Not really.

What worked well for you as you positioned yourself as a media personality?

When I was in the thick of grinding it out, I was really dedicated to my Twitter feed. Every morning, I would tweet for three hours. It was just as important as going to auditions or making sure that I was writing for XYZ magazine. So by the time Fashion Queens came on, I already had 50,000 Twitter followers. Social media is the fifth estate.

When you talk to network executives, they want to know if you’re on Instagram, Facebook, how many followers, all of that because that means big bucks. Every Sunday, I still live tweet Fashion Queens. I’m not paid extra to do that. It just makes it that much more interactive for the people who watch it and follow me.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Topics:

So What Do You Do, Cathy Hughes, Founder of TV One and Radio One?

This media entrepreneur talks reaching communities of color

@thegirlcanwrite

7 min read • Originally published October 15, 2015 / Updated March 19, 2026

@thegirlcanwrite

7 min read • Originally published October 15, 2015 / Updated March 19, 2026

“Mogul” in its present overuse, is like the retired boxer of dictionary words: it used to pack a lot of punch, but now it’s gotten kind of flaccid and nondescript. Cathy Hughes doesn’t care much for the term either, especially when it’s being used to describe her.

“I’m not a mogul. I hate that title because I’m still very much a work in progress,” she insists. Still, its root definition seems a nail-on-the-head way to describe a woman who founded Radio One in 1980, growing it into the largest Black-owned radio chains in the country with 53 stations across 16 markets, oversaw it as CEO for 17 years, then launched its sister network TV One in partnership with Comcast in 2004.

Hughes’ ascension to the executive suite only reads like a fairy tale, though. Before becoming the first woman to own a radio station ranked #1 in any major market and the first African-American woman to head a publicly traded company, she was a divorced single mother who lived with her son in the office space of her first station until she could turn a profit.

Here, the urban media specialist — and sometimes controversial figure — chats about journalism, family business, and not sweatin’ the competition.

Name: Catherine Hughes
Position: Founder, chairperson of the board and secretary of Radio One. Founder of TV One.
Resume: Began career in 1969 at KOWH in her native Omaha, but left for the nation’s capital after being offered a spot as a lecturer at Howard University. Named general sales manager of WHUR, the campus radio station, in 1973; promoted to general manager two years later. In that short time, Hughes had taken annual revenues at the station from $300,000 to more than $3.5 million. In 1979, Hughes and then-husband Dewey Hughes sought financing to purchase their own radio station and were rejected by 32 banks until they secured lending to buy WOL, a small Washington, D.C. station that birthed Radio One in 1980. Almost 15 years later, launched TV One, a network targeting African-American adults and presently available in some 38 million households.
Birthdate: April 22
Hometown: Omaha, NE
Education: Studied at University of Nebraska-Omaha and her father’s alma mater, Creighton University, but never completed her degree
Marital status: Divorced
First section of the Sunday Times: Metro
Favorite TV show: Unsung
Guilty pleasure: “Ice cream. All flavors, all kinds, all brands.”
Last book read: The Stieg Larsson series: The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest
Twitter handle: None

You were inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame. Now that you’ve also transitioned into television, is radio still your favorite medium?

Absolutely. No question about it. Radio provides instant gratification. We could go on air and say that a family is in need and immediately get people responding and being of assistance to them. Radio gives you the ability to reach out and assist immediately.

Radio One and TV One are multimillion dollar businesses. How were you able to grow both as independent companies and compete against huge broadcasting corporations?

When you’re community-based, your audience knows that you’re different than a facility that’s there just to entertain them. So you have a different relationship, a more meaningful relationship. We literally outsold our competitors because although we were outresourced by them — meaning they’re much bigger with more money and more people — they were not able to outservice us.

TV One has been making serious inroads against BET with shows like Unsung and Life After. When you first launched the network, what niche were you aiming to fill that BET wasn’t?

An older demographic, an adult population. BET is more youth-oriented. We were more concerned with providing quality programming for African-Americans over the age of 30. BET’s target audience has always been younger and now their average age is like 20.

They lost all of their beer business because their median age was not 21 and when the information became well-known that they are basically a teen network, the liquor companies could no longer advertise with them.

With the launch of the Centric network, do you feel like they’re trying to encroach on your market?

I think they’re setting themselves up to be competitors, but it hasn’t even begun to scratch the surface because Viacom is not a Black corporation, and Black viewers are very sophisticated about Black ownership now.

At one time, I think a lot of BET’s popularity and reach had to do with it being Black-owned. And Black people were like “this is our network.” Even though it was young, it belonged to the young people who watched it. They no longer have that relationship with the African-American consumer. They’re owned by the same company who decides what’s going to be on MTV and VH1, so there’s no relationship there.

TV One debuted Love That Girl, its first original sitcom in 2010, but it received a lot of negative reviews from the press and viewers who thought it was too stereotypical. What did you learn from that experience and do you have plans to do another scripted series?

That was a pilot, sweetie. The ratings were through the ceiling. We just produced 26 episodes and it’s our first scripted sitcom. Let me tell you about Love That Girl. It’s my dream come true because it’s produced by a Black production company in a Black-owned studio — the only Black-owned studio in Los Angeles — and it’s a Black sitcom aired on a Black network.

We’ve got four areas that African-Americans have historically been closed out of. So those four episodes were a test and proved that that’s what our audience wanted to see. Twenty-six episodes means it’ll run a whole year. It’s something that’s never been done. I’m really excited about it, as you can tell.

What do you foresee for radio’s future now that the digital age is making traditional radio formats seem so old school?

Oh, I think radio will continue to reinvent itself. I think it will remain the number one way to reach communities of color. I don’t think that’s going to change.

Because the competition for airtime is so stiff, what advice would you give to those radio personalities looking to stand out and break into large markets?

Be persistent and be willing to go into a smaller market to get discovered. Sometimes you can’t start off in New York. Maybe you have to start off in a St. Louis and get moved to a New York.

Your son Alfred Liggins is chairman of TV One and CEO and president of Radio One. Is it your plan to step down one day so he can fully run both companies?

He’s already responsible for running both companies from an operations and administrative standpoint. I would hope never to step down as long as God blesses me with good health because, with him doing the operations, it’s freed me up to get more involved in the community.

We just turned 30 years old this year and, instead of the usual parties that most people have to celebrate their anniversaries, we paid our staff — all 1,800 members — to volunteer at various organizations in the community. That was a project that I was charged with overseeing. So, not having to actually run the radio stations has given me more of an opportunity to get involved in the community, which is my first love.

What’s the dynamic of you two working together?

At first, to be honest with you, it was quite challenging. All family businesses are challenging because it’s like, “hey, this is the kid who used to need the key to the front door. Suppose he loses the key to the office?” But he and I have done it for a long period now, so the kinks have pretty much been worked out, and we have a fair division of labor.

Radio One bought out the struggling Giant magazine and made it an online publication. Would you ever launch or buy another print magazine?

Not in this environment. The reality is that magazines are quite challenged because people primarily get their news from the Internet now. They don’t read magazines or newspapers. Giant’s online reach now covers about 82 percent of the entire Black community. It adds another leg to our platform.

What was your lowest point before you reached this level of success?

I don’t view things as lows and highs. Business has its ups and downs and everything in life is a cycle. Everyone’s life has ups and downs, so I don’t take it personally. As the Good Book says, “this too shall pass away” and I live by that adage that bad times will not only pass but so will good times.

I’ve had challenging times, but it’s kind of dangerous to say what was the lowest because you don’t know what the good Lord has in store for you in the future. It may be yet to come.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Topics:

So What Do You Do, Marvet Britto, President and CEO of The Britto Agency?

'At the end of the day, truth is what elevates brands'

@AndreaWillWrite

8 min read • Originally published October 15, 2015 / Updated March 19, 2026

@AndreaWillWrite

8 min read • Originally published October 15, 2015 / Updated March 19, 2026

As a publicist, Marvet Britto’s roster is deep with celebrities (Angela Bassett, Kim Cattrall and the NBA’s Tyson Chandler), blue chip companies (Motorola and Microsoft) and an entire island (Anguilla).

And while many in the PR biz toil in virtual anonymity on behalf of their clients, Britto is a star in her own right, with 80,000-plus Twitter followers and regular appearances on MSNBC, the Today show and HLN to discuss her work as a global brand and PR strategist.

Surprisingly, in an industry that runs on personal connections, the New York native’s secret for PR superstardom is less about who she knows and is instead firmly rooted in how hard she’s willing to work.

“I actually call networking ‘not working,'” she says. Here, she discusses what it really takes to land a high-profile client and why she has no problem walking away from one.

Name: Marvet Britto
Position: President/CEO of The Britto Agency and TV, film and theater producer
Resume: Went to college for two years and then worked odd jobs (waitressing, etc.) while researching the PR industry. After no luck finding internships or full-time positions, opened her own firm, The Britto Agency, in 1993. Past clients include Payless, Motorola, Mariah Carey, and athletes Gary Sheffield and Stephon Marbury. Shaped the exit campaign for former New York governor David Paterson’s move into the private sector, including landing him an appearance spoofing himself on Saturday Night Live. Co-executive producer of the films The Woodsman and Shadowboxer and producer of the plays Mama I Want to Sing and the Tony-nominated The Trip to Bountiful.
Birthday: March 11
Hometown: Manhattan
Education: Attended Tuskegee University for two years
Marital status: Single
Media idols: Oprah and Tamron Hall because “she multitasks. She’s got a million jobs. I love her energy and her spunk and her passion for her craft.”
Favorite TV shows: 60 Minutes and anything on CNBC and The History Channel
Guilty pleasure: Sweets
Last book read: The Bible
Twitter handle: @MarvetBritto

You’ve represented a slew of celebrities. How did you score your first high-profile client, and what advice do you have for up-and-coming publicists to do the same?

For me, it was always about my personal business acumen and really focusing on the value system I felt I could bring to clients. And I’m blessed to say, in almost 20 years of business, I’ve never solicited one client. They have all come to me based on referrals, and I would hope it has been fueled by the work I have done.

I think, so often today, people really spend most of their time networking. I actually call networking “not working,” because most people go to rooms, or dinners, or events and spend 90 percent or more of their time talking to people they already know.

So, for me, I felt as though I would just simply do the work and do the work to the greatest degree of excellence and others would gravitate to me. They would seek me out based on the mutual desire to achieve a similar level of excellence. I believe that when you do something well, you will create a category and begin to define and build your own brand, [to] which others will, like a magnet, be drawn to you.

So, in my instance, everyone from Angela Bassett to Kim Cattrall to Mariah Carey to companies like Motorola have all sought me out for my services, based on the talent of my firm and the capabilities of my firm.

So you’re saying that as long as people do their work and do it well, they’re going to get the big clients and the big opportunities.

Yeah, because people like hard work. People gravitate to people who toil tirelessly in any industry. People see. That’s what they notice. That’s what becomes your business card, if you will. We call it “brand” in this day and age, but you really become known for your pedigree and your work.

I think that so many people are interested in the introduction to people being made, but your introduction needs to be your body of work. So, really, you should hone [your skills] and really be laser focused on doing the best work that you can do, because that is the best resume any person could have.

You know, a lot of people are working on their social currency when they should be focused on their work currency. They should be focused on doing the work, because, at the end of the day, people are referred based on the work.

We’re in this generation of microwave success. Everyone wants to press 2-0-0-Start and be their favorite person tomorrow. They want to be Marvet Britto tomorrow, not realizing that it took me 20 years to get here, and I’m still toiling 18-, 19-hour days, trying to really cement my place in the realms and world of PR.

What do you do when your own moral convictions or beliefs interfere with your work with a client?

You step away from it. I have a scripture on my wall that I look at from my desk, and it says simply, “For what shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world, yet lose his own soul,” Mark 8:36. That is on the wall of my office, and it has been for 20 years. And that scripture is there because it reminds me that nothing I do in my life or business should ever compromise my moral compass.

We’re living in a generation where people compromise their morals for financial or personal gain, [but] for me it really is not about sacrificing my character or integrity to excel in life, because ultimately the very thing that you do to get ahead will be the very thing that keeps you from ever really growing in business.

So, I always tell people that karma never loses an address. And sometimes in business you get a little bit discouraged by being overlooked, or being passed over, or not being supported, or any of the things that we face in business, but I believe that if you keep a high level of standards in your operating procedures, you will be respected for such.

I always tell people, “It’s not what you say yes to, it’s what you say no to that builds equity.” So, for me, I’ve had to stop working with A-list clients. I knew that I was being asked to compromise my morals or my character or integrity to protect them or to work with them, and I wasn’t willing to do so. I’ve always run my business from a place of truth. There are a lot of people that believe that being a publicist means that you’re supposed to protect your client at any costs.

I don’t subscribe to that school. I subscribe to the school of being completely transparent with media and being completely transparent and truthful because, at the end of the day, truth is what elevates brands. When you are a truthful brand, you will create an organic connection to your consumer.

You were instrumental in getting the cast of Real Housewives of Atlanta to Anguilla this past season. What do you say to people who criticize PR orchestrations like that on reality shows or elsewhere? Do you think the network has an obligation to disclose your involvement?

I don’t think the network hid my involvement. I think Peter [Thomas, cast member] spoke about his friend, who’s a publicist, who arranged for the housewives to go to Anguilla. I’m the global brand strategist for the island of Anguilla, and any time I represent something that’s beautiful and excellent, I want to make sure that I’m able to share that with our community.

So, I don’t think it was a secret. But, for me, being on camera for the Housewives would have been gratuitous. There wouldn’t have really been a purpose apart for me getting shine, when I represent the island and I wanted Anguilla to be the star.

What is the most important skill that publicists need?

Communication. I think a lot of PR people forget that communication is the singular most important tool that you must employ. I’m hearing these days that a lot of publicists don’t necessarily return calls; they’re not getting back to people swiftly, and they’re emailing and they’re losing the art of personal.

And that’s why I always encourage people to read Terrie Williams’ book, The Personal Touch, because to be a rock star in PR you have to be a great communicator. You have to communicate people’s needs and aspirations. That’s the only thing that will allow you to thrive in this business.

It seems like everyone has a PR firm. When is the right time for publicists to strike out on their own, and when do they need to stay under the tutelage of someone more experienced?

To be honest with you, I only started my own firm because I didn’t have any PR experience, and I wasn’t able to work within a firm with no PR experience. I think that people should stay within an incubated professional environment as long as they can, because being a business owner is a very difficult road.

There are a lot of moving parts, and it’s not easy being a business owner and dealing with all of the various aspects of business, from staffing to payroll to employees. You have to deal with all the things, and even if you have a team, like I do, you still have to oversee it. So, if you can work for someone and have the freedom to create, then that’s the best thing.

And I also have to say I was very blessed to have some great, A-list clients. Social media has allowed there to not be as many superstars as there used to be, because stars now are becoming more accessible, which means that their equity has become more diluted. So, in order to strike out on your own, you have to really have an arsenal of powerful alliances and clients to support you. And if you don’t have that, then it’s very difficult, not only to financially sustain yourself, but to make a mark in a very cluttered industry.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Topics:

So What Do You Do, David Karp, Founder of Tumblr?

Popularity, not profit, is the idea for this Web platform prodigy

By Sammy Davis

10 min read • Originally published October 15, 2015 / Updated March 19, 2026

By Sammy Davis

10 min read • Originally published October 15, 2015 / Updated March 19, 2026

When David Karp was 15, he dropped out of high school to be homeschooled on New York’s Upper West Side. At 17, he moved to Tokyo to work for UrbanBaby, an online parenting advice site with highly trafficked message boards full of urban-dwelling moms and dads.

And when he was 20, he founded Tumblr, a Web platform inspired by the tumblelog, a blog format which enables short-form, mixed-media posts. All of this without ever attending college — as Karp says, he’s just waiting on his honorary degree.

Karp wanted to share his life instantaneously, and without the time commitment required of other blogging platforms. More than that, he wanted others to experience the satisfyingly speedy genesis of tumblelog posts.

As one of New York’s youngest tech darlings, Karp set up shop for his development consulting company, Davidville, on 29th & Park Avenue and then introduced Tumblr to the public in February 2007. If WordPress is for the OCD-est of bloggers, then Tumblr is for the ADD-est in the pack. No post is ever too short or too fast, and no tumblelog ever has too many entries.

Karp spoke with mediabistro.com about Tumblr’s success, its latest features, and why anyone concerned about their Google rankings needs a tumblelog.

Name: David Karp
Position: Founder, Tumblr
Resume: Computer support, to intern, to consultant, to product developer, to CTO of UrbanBaby, to Web developer
Birthday: July 6, 1986
Hometown: New York City
Education: Freshman year at Bronx Science High School
Marital status: Unmarried
First section of the Sunday Times: Not a regular reader
Favorite television shows: The Colbert Report
Guilty pleasure: New York City restaurants
Last book read: Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey A. Moore

Where did the idea for Tumblr come from?

Sometime in 2005, I came across a tumblelog called Projectionist. It was actually, at the time, a blog that was tracking all of the tumblelogs on the Web. These tumblelogs were literally published tools to more easily do what people had been doing back in old Angelfire pages, which was putting up random bits of media and making it look a little bit like a blog.

Projectionist solved the posting problems of WordPress with a brilliant aesthetic sense: You can put up bits of media but the theme or the “skin” will take care of the aesthetics, and the media will be in nice little enclosures. Video will come up in a nice frame, blurbs will come up in nice little bubbles, there will be the ability to make gorgeous typography quotes.

So the first thing that really caught my attention was the blog Projectionist. This was a very young movement — it was one that [founding developer Marco Arment and I] realized no one was really developing on. We liked the idea that we could be the ones to link that, we could make the first tool that made that accessible to everyone, and could completely reinvent on the idea of a tumblelog.

I sat on the idea for a year and a half, and it was pretty clear no one was really doing anything with it. I was running a consulting company in 2006, and one month we had two weeks between contracts where we were just sitting around, and I said “Hey, let’s go for it. Let’s see if we can build this thing.”

It took [Marco and I] two weeks to build, and it became the first version of Tumblr. We launched it and showed it to the tumblelog community, and overnight we had like 30,000 registered users in this community who were following those things, who didn’t have the know-how to create it themselves.

Tumblr is distinctly different from other blogging platforms. How did you achieve that?

The magic of Tumblr is we let you put anything in and get it out any way you want. We want you to be able to post anything. Tumblr takes care of formatting content nicely and making it look good on your blog.

When we say you can take the content out any way, you can take that blog anywhere you want because our API (application programming interface) is totally open to pull that content and put it anywhere on the Web. You can incorporate your content into any other site, make your own domain name and do anything with that data.

We’ve created what is the most flexible platform for publishing in the world. You can put anything in and get anything out. We’re doing a pretty good job of that.

How do you market Tumblr? How do you advertise it? How do you promote it?

We’re taking advantage of the really incredible user base of Tumblr and hoping to focus on the people who are doing really amazing things with it, and to do everything we can to make that resonate with the people who are our users, and with [those] who are fans of what we’re doing.

Do you aim to sell Tumblr?

I don’t think we aim to sell anything. I’m much more enchanted with the notion of something that’s employing me in 15 years rather than something that we flip in a year. And again, that’s something that we don’t think about. And that’s certainly not our goal.

Why not?

We’re not motivated by money. We are into this thing that we’re building.

Who is Tumblr’s competition?

The biggest reason we’re not really thinking about competition is that our interest is in the next big thing we haven’t come up with yet, not necessarily just different ways to do the same stuff that we’ve already doing.

It’s [for] the same reasons why no one is really adopting the Twitter clones that are coming up. They’re not really inventing anything new. They may have slightly better tools and they may fix up a few of the problems. But there are two ways to solve problems: One of them is implementing a feature, making it a setting, or something to just kind of quell users who are saying, “Man I wish I did this” versus inventing a completely new product that solves all of the old problems of all those makeshift tools, but serves users in a completely new way.

What can other media companies learn from Tumblr, or the approach to creating it?

A lot of what we’ve done isn’t our invention. We try to emulate people doing the smartest stuff and follow their lead.

Jason Fried had for a long time preached to have a very open communication channel with your users, talk about what you’re doing, and don’t be afraid to ignore some of the feedback coming in because the stuff that’s really good or really, really important will always come to the top. That’s something we’ve taken into account.

Also, we’ve tried to keep as cheap and lean an operation as possible, but that’s not an original idea. That’s something you should take seriously because it puts you in a much easier position in so many ways. Even if you can raise money, every time you raise money you lost three months pushing out paperwork and getting it to close. It’s a real loss. It keeps our focus different.

What’s really been important to us, I guess, is we didn’t feel like this was a tech industry thing really. We cared about the community and told them why we’re excited and that we’re with them religiously, but we’re just as excited about the other industries and what they are doing and how we can fit into them. In a lot of ways, we’ve been thinking about the media industry a lot — we like thinking about the really neat things people can do with media.

We talk to a lot of bloggers, Viacom and MTV and those folks — what are they doing, and what could they be doing and what they are thinking about. Adding that extra dimension to what’s just a Web tool, I think, is what makes it a much more meaningful development of focus.

Many online journalists and bloggers use Tumblr for their personal blogs. How would you explain the attraction for those who blog for a living, who finish their workday spent in front of a computer screen and, in large numbers, go and do the same for themselves via Tumblr?

That’s the whole reason they weren’t going for TypePad or WordPress: One reason is they’re not supposed to be blogging while employed. They can’t have anything that resembles a blog. They don’t want to come home and keep writing.

It’s a passion, but in a lot of cases, it’s work for them so what they wind up doing is they post to Tumblr and it’s a very transparent thing — you can have a tumblelog in addition to everything else you do, while you’re doing research you can grab those links and share them transparently.

A lot of times people look at Tumblr as an auxiliary to long-form blogging, or it can be viewed that way, and I think it’s how a lot of media people are using it. One really interesting characteristic of it is that it’s much easier to maintain, and I think it’s [a type of blogging that’s] much easier to sustain.

You’re able to get [a tumblelog] up and running really quickly, much faster than I think a long-form blog where there’s a lot more editorial consideration. You can just kind of turn the thing on.

Do you think of Tumblr as a microblog?

It’s interesting, every time we use that phrase, our users go “No, it really isn’t guys.” It supports microblogging, and there is no other platform that supports small bits of every type of media like Tumblr does. But really, you’re just as free to post any long-form stuff you want.

I think the real trick is that it’s the first real platform to alter that flexibility. We bill it as the easiest way to share yourself. It is a publishing tool, but because of the kind of simplicity and ease of publishing, it’s been able to serve a much wider audience who’s really just in it for the sharing, or that feeling of popularity of creating something online.

Do you feel blogs are contributing to the millennial narcissism?

For the first time, the millennial generation is growing up realizing and understanding that if you don’t put yourself out there, the search results that come up next to your name are not necessarily going to be flattering. The only way to control that is to be out there, to flood the Web with stuff that you’re comfortable with.

Now, when you search my name, you come across the thousands of posts I feel comfortable representing me. That’s not the case for a lot of people, who got tagged in one embarrassing picture on Flickr, or all they have is their Facebook account, and things that they wouldn’t want representing themselves to anyone.

I think that it’s going to be necessary for our generation to be a little bit more, not necessarily narcissistic, but open to the public. I don’t know if that’s necessarily a bad thing. I think at the end of the day we all crave that popularity, and this is a great, really fun way to have that identity and have that online as we’re increasingly spending our time there.

Who are some Tumblr users you were excited/inspired to see using your platform, and why?

The stuff that I’m really giddy about are the big media companies who are companies who could build their own things because they’re comfortably using their open source tool, but who see there’s so much advantage to building on top of a centralized tool.

They’re comfortable knowing that they can own content and use [Tumblr] as a platform, and they’re ready to build stuff on top of us. This is some outreach that we’ve started to focus on, convincing the big guys to treat us like the solution to their awful proprietary concepts. That’s one thing I’m kind of excited about.

Who are you hiring exactly?

We’re trying to hire more people who are talent people who will help other people do other interesting things with Tumblrs. We’ll help you get a designer, if you need an editor or just someone to help out, or if you need some ideas or if you need help coding Tumblr, then talk to this person [from Tumblr].

We will just have a repository of really talented people who get Tumblr and can help other people build their own brands.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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So What Do You Do, Ryan Schreiber, Founder and CEO of Pitchfork?

How a high school grad with no experience built the definitive online music mag

@AndreaWillWrite

8 min read • Originally published October 15, 2015 / Updated March 19, 2026

@AndreaWillWrite

8 min read • Originally published October 15, 2015 / Updated March 19, 2026

Way, way back in 1995, when the first dot-com domain name was celebrating its tenth birthday and the World Wide Web was still an incredibly young four years old, the Internet was truly unchartered territory.

But for Ryan Schreiber, then a 19-year-old record store clerk, it was the perfect Petri dish for a new music experiment. With no publishing or writing background, Schreiber took to the net and created an online shrine to the indie bands he loved, cold-calling record labels to secure artist interviews.

“I was calling up labels out of the blue like, ‘Hi I have this music magazine on the Internet,'” Schreiber said, “and people were like, ‘On the what?'”

Pitchfork‘s early years were scrappy and shaky, but the site has solid footing now and is widely regarded as one of the most authoritative voices in the industry. Today, Schreiber has an entire editorial crew and a bevy of contributors to assign and write reviews but, with 99 percent of his workday dedicated to finding the next indie music sensation, he still has the best job in the world.

Name: Ryan Schreiber
Position: Founder/CEO of Pitchfork.com
Resume: Worked as a record store clerk before launching Pitchfork in 1995
Birthday: January 26, 1976
Hometown: Milwaukee
Education: Graduated from Hopkins High School in Minnetonka, Minn.
Marital status: Married
Media idol: Roger Ebert and musician, poet and visual artist Patti Smith. “She’s an incredible writer and one of those people who is just great at everything she does.”
Favorite TV show: Arrested Development
Guilty pleasure: “I buy a lot of t-shirts on eBay, and I can’t stop. My closet is so full, it’s ridiculous.”
Last book read: R. Kelly’s autobiography SoulaCoaster
Twitter handle: @RyanPitchfork

Going back to when you first launched Pitchfork, what was on your mind when you decided to break out and do your own thing?

Well, a friend of mine had introduced me to the Web pretty early on, around ’94. So I had been on it for a while by the time that I started Pitchfork, and there was just not really a lot out there for independent music. There were not a lot of music publications or anything like that online, but especially for independent music it was really just a blank slate. And I had always been interested in publishing and music writing and criticism.

I read a ton of music magazines at the time — I just consumed them voraciously — and it seemed like it would be kind of a fun experiment. It was the height of 90’s ‘zine culture at that time too, so there were all these sort of DIY fan-zines floating around. And it just seemed really manageable to do something like that on my end. So, I just started writing. I started a Web page, and from there I started to try to get interviews with artists through reaching out to record labels.

When did you know that you had something big?

I guess at the point where it felt like it was starting to be realistic for me to make a living off it was probably around ’99 or so. We had, especially comparatively, a really tiny readership; it was maybe something like 2,000 readers a month or something. But at that point it had sort of become, in this very, very small, niche way, the main, online resource for independent music.

So, I felt like maybe I could start to experiment with advertising or something like that. And I was done trying to make ends meet in other ways and really wanted to find a way to make it work. So, I essentially started calling labels and local businesses asking if they would want to advertise for a very small amount. Eventually I got some takers.

The Internet is a lot more crowded than when you first started. How do you keep Pitchfork relevant and distinguishable from the competition?

It’s just a grind, basically. The way that we keep it running and keep it interesting to us is just continuing to really engage with and dig up all forms of music. But there are also so many people working on Pitchfork now that it’s great, because a day in the office is people throwing around, “Oh, I just heard this; check this out,” “What do you think about this?” There’s a lot of conversation going about current music and, by current, I mean what’s come out that day. So, it’s a fun environment for us all to work in.

Besides the core, full-time staff at Pitchfork, there’s also a whole extended family of contributors as well, and they also kind of suggest things. They’ll pitch track reviews and things like that, or album reviews. So, for me and Mark Richardson, who’s editor-in-chief, and our entire editorial team, pretty much 99 percent of our days are spent listening to and discussing music.

So it really comes down to that. It’s something that you live and breathe and it’s what we’re super passionate about, so it’s just a matter of staying current and loving what you do.

What two pieces of advice would you give to a blogger or entrepreneur who is interested in starting an online venture?

Distinguish yourself. Make sure that your voice is independent and unique and that your opinions on your subject vary from the other voices that exist in that field and that your area of expertise is specific to you, and you’re not just out there covering the exact same things that everybody else is in the same way. Just be unique and have an independent voice.

And the other thing I would say is to be willing to put in the work for a long period of time for just the love of it. Today, more so than any other time, it seems really difficult to make a living in the media, especially in the music media. It’s just so crowded, and at this point the publications that are really able to establish themselves are the ones that are the most passionate and the most relatable. I find that the publications I tend to connect with most are ones that are, in many cases, written by a single voice, somebody who has a really interesting viewpoint or perspective.

You didn’t have any previous writing experience when you started Pitchfork. So do you think passion is more important than skill or experience?

No, I don’t think one is more important than the other. They’re both really important. The fact that I didn’t have any experience was definitely not an asset to me when I started. In a lot of what I wrote at that time, you can really tell that [writing] was not something that I really had a firm grasp on at that point.

So both of those things are key. I think, at this point, you need both of those to establish yourself, but I do think that passion is maybe slightly more necessary than skill because people are open to a certain amount of amateurism on the Web. As long as you’re getting your point across and doing it in an interesting way, you don’t necessarily need to be technically a perfect writer. You can just be an enthusiast who is able to communicate in a reasonably relatable way, and in many cases that’s enough for people.

A positive Pitchfork review is a really big deal to an artist, and you’ve been credited with breaking several big names. Which of your reviews has been the most controversial, and why? And which one are you the most proud of?

I would say the review that has been the most controversial was our review of Jet’s “Shine On” in 2006. To this day, it’s probably our most popular review, which is funny because there’s no text. It was just a rating with a YouTube video of a monkey drinking its own piss. [Laughing] That got a lot attention. It’s such a bizarre and funny video, and it’s such a strange thing to see, that the sort of bewildering qualities of this video were, in itself, sort of an early form of viral activity.

So, it’s kind of interesting to me that it was responded that strongly to, and it’s also one of my favorite reviews, too. To pick a favorite review would be so, so difficult. I feel really lucky to work with so many people whose talents I really admire and who, at the end of the day, I feel are some of the best people working in this field. So as far as favorites go, it’s just so difficult to choose.

Most of the major music magazines, like Blender and more recently Spin, have folded partly due to the explosion of music information online. Do you think a purely music magazine can still survive in print?

I think if you’re going to be able to do a print publication that works in 2013, it has to really take advantage of that format, and the things that that format offers that are much more difficult to execute on the Web are having really expansive, beautiful layouts for your articles and features and making it feel like a desirable object. So, I think publications like Fader and Wax Poetics potentially could sustain, because they look great and the writing is really good.

And those are publications that also have a little different approach. I think that a lot of publications tend to go with formula so often, and both of those publications tend to break a little bit from the norm. It used to be that when you picked up a music magazine in, like, the 90s there was all this cheap, chintzy content thrown in there and goofy sidebars and just sort of filler, almost. And it’s really just not an option anymore.

I feel like if people are willing to make an investment in a music magazine — or in a magazine of any sort, currently — they want something that feels substantial and feels significant. It’s not a joke. It’s a real thing.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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So What Do You Do, Kai Ryssdal, Marketplace Host/Senior Editor?

'You have to be willing to do whatever it takes.'

By E.B. Boyd

7 min read • Originally published October 15, 2015 / Updated March 19, 2026

By E.B. Boyd

7 min read • Originally published October 15, 2015 / Updated March 19, 2026

If you’re looking for the latest news on the economy these days, one place you might be turning to is American Public Media’s flagship broadcast, Marketplace.

If so, you’re in the company of an estimated five million public radio listeners* who rely on host Kai Ryssdal to explain the intricacies of mortgage-backed securities, credit default swaps, and the markets.

Ryssdal started his career as many do: as an intern at a public radio station. Unlike most, however, that was after having already been a Navy pilot and a U.S. Foreign Service officer. In 1997, Ryssdal and his wife left their postings in Beijing so she could attend business school at Stanford.

He took a job at a bookstore in Palo Alto, and it was while shelving books one evening — and wondering what he was going to do with his life — that he came across a book listing radio internships. Long considered a “news freak,” Ryssdal decided to give broadcasting a shot. He spent a year and a half schlepping at San Francisco’s KQED before finally making it on air.

Ryssdal moved to southern California and the Marketplace Morning Report in 2001, where he spent four years waking up at midnight in order to begin broadcasting at 2:50 a.m. — which was 5:50 a.m. back east. Ryssdal took over the reins at Marketplace in 2005. mediabistro.com caught up with him to learn how he crafts Marketplace stories that keep listeners tuned in.

Name: Kai Ryssdal
Position: Host and senior editor, Marketplace
Resume: “Starting at the beginning, U.S. Navy (1985-1993), U.S. Foreign Service (1993-1997). Then I managed to get myself an internship at KQED. I stuck around long enough, they finally put me on the radio, and 10 years later, here I am.”
Birthday: October 8, 1963
Hometown: Briarcliff Manor, New York
Education: BA, History, Emory University 1985; MA National Security Studies, Georgetown University, 1993
Marital status: Married since 1997 with three sons and one daughter
First section of Sunday Times: “The front page, then Sports, then the wedding announcements, then Week in Review, then Business.”
Favorite TV show: Lately, Mad Men
Last book read: “Goodnight Moon, to my 1 1/2 year old. Otherwise, catching up on back issues of The New Yorker.”
Guilty pleasure: Peanut M&Ms

**Do you have an algorithm for deciding what makes a Marketplace story?**

One of the most important things we do is context — to place individuals and companies and the larger economy in their proper context. For individuals, it’s why things like auction rate securities matter, [and] what that will mean for their municipalities as they try to get loans to build a new swimming pool. For companies, what the earnings picture is. For the U.S. economy, what the global economy picture is. There’s a finite amount that anybody can digest. This stuff is dense, and it’s hard, and it’s complicated — and frankly, sometimes it’s not all that interesting. It’s a pretty high bar to get on to the program.

The fact that it took so long for folks to catch on — what do you think that says about the human interest in bad news and/or business journalism’s ability to ring the bell?

This stuff is so complicated, and in this instance so dark and so depressing, that it’s easy not to pay attention. There’s also so much noise out there. The less you personally have a filter — where you say, “I can’t pay attention to that. I’m going to listen to these 14 things today and not the 80 that are out there” — you just get swamped. Then all the information that is out there gets devalued, because there is so much.

What does your typical day look like?

I get up really early because out here in California, we’re behind the time zone. By the time I get up at 4:30 or 5:00 in the morning, things are already happening on the East Coast. I get up and digest the news of the day. I start thinking about what the lead story is going to be and what the through-line of the broadcast is going to be. If you think about my job, it’s really to make sure that everybody who’s listening at the beginning of the broadcast is still there at the end. So I have to make that connection between the lead story of the day, the stories that follow in the newscast, and then the features and interviews that devolve throughout the program.

I do a quick check of the markets. I call some people if there are issues or questions about a story that I don’t quite understand, and then our morning editorial meeting at 8:00 gets everybody rolling. We do a pass-down from our overnight shift, the guys who work on the Marketplace Morning Report, so we know what’s been going on overseas and in the overnight economy.

Reporters get assigned, I do interviews or other prep work, and then at noon, I start writing the show. The reporters and editors work to get their stuff in by 1:00 p.m. Los Angeles time, and we go on the air for our first set of broadcasts at 2:00 pm L.A. time. On a not-market-meltdown day, things are pretty calm around here by 4:00 p.m.

**I’ve been told the Marketplace broadcast explicitly has a specific persona. Is that right?**

There absolutely is a Marketplace persona and a Marketplace voice. It’s something you figure out very quickly when you get here. All our reporters, producers, and editors understand that the thing that makes Marketplace is the sound. It is the irreverence, the wit, the accessibility, the humor, and when needed, a bit of edginess that makes these stories we do listenable. It’s absolutely something we concentrate on and work at very hard.

Who figured that out?

It’s been that way at Marketplace for 20 years. When Jim Russell and J.J. Yore started this program, they deliberately started out to do a business program that was not straight numbers and straight stocks and all that not-so-interesting stuff that other business programs are. It has carried through 20 years amazingly successfully because we all realize that this is our niche.

What stories have most resonated with listeners?

The stories we did from China two-and-a-half years ago, even today. I was in Baltimore recently, giving a couple of speeches, and people were still coming up to me, saying, “Those China broadcasts were just the most amazing thing I ever heard.” But point out any story in the last four months for sheer impact and importance, and you can pick those as well.

What advice would you give to someone who wanted to follow in your footsteps?

You have to do whatever makes you happy. You can’t replicate what I did because I got unbelievably lucky. I was in the right place at the right time and willing to make a change and take some risks. When I came here to take the Morning Report job, I was married, I had two little children, and I was getting up in the middle of the night to go to work. You have to be willing to do whatever it takes. Never say no. If someone says, “Can you come in on Sunday and go to Chinatown to get us some tape for the Monday broadcast,” you have to say yes. And that goes now more than ever in journalism, when it’s so hard to find really good work. If you have an opportunity, you absolutely have to grab it.

Was there anything you learned in the Navy that is coming handy now?

Discipline. Getting up at midnight to go to work for four years in a row takes a certain amount of discipline. Writing on deadline every single day takes discipline.

**Who do you see as Marketplace‘s main competition, and how do you think you’re doing against them?**

Our competition comes on two levels, really. On the macro scale, we’ve got to deal with the same issue everyone else in journalism does — the sheer amount of information that’s out there, online, on the air and on paper — and how to make ourselves stand out. More specifically within public radio, business and the economy is the story right now, and a lot of other programs have raised their game. I think the things that have set us apart from the beginning — our attitude, how we go about telling the stories behind the numbers and statistics — have really helped keep us ahead and set us apart.

What about your future? You’ve already had three or four careers. Do you think you want to do something else down the road?

There is nothing I’m not willing to try. I got into radio because I think it’s fun and interesting. But there’s a lot going out there.

What’s a blog or news source where you get really interesting news, insights, and tidbits from, that the average person might not be aware of?

Planet Money at NPR because Adam Davidson is a) a friend of mine and b) really creative and talented.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Topics: