One morning a year ago, Slate editor David Plotz came into his office, a stone’s throw from the DuPont Circle neighborhood of Washington, and discovered a 50-foot-high billboard of an attractive, Michelle-Obama-looking woman hanging off the side of the SEIU building, directly out his window. “This gigantic woman appeared to be staring directly into my office. It spooked me,” Plotz said. “I felt like I was being watched all the time by gigantic Michelle Obama. I had to lower my shades, and kept them lowered until they removed the billboard a few months ago.”

Such are the minor hauntings of working at a place like Slate where old-school journalists are thought to be doing serious, intellectual, higher brow journalism. Plotz is so open about Slate’s political consciousness (or lack thereof) that writers’ votes are regularly posted on the site for all to see. Having a political opinion isn’t necessary, he says, but it is never denied or avoided.

What Plotz likes about his job: “Amazingly intelligent and decent and funny colleagues, a magazine I am always proud to be working on.” What he dislikes: “Almost no time to write.”

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Name: David Plotz
Position: Editor, Slate.com
Resume: Before joining the magazine in 1996, Plotz was senior editor and staff writer for Washington City Paper. Plotz has written for a variety of publications, including NYT Magazine, Harper’s, Rolling Stone, GQ, The New Republic, and the Washington Post. He’s the author of The Genius Factory: The Curious History of the Nobel Prize Sperm Bank and, most recently, Good Book: The Bizarre, Hilarious, Disturbing, Marvelous, and Inspiring Things I Learned When I Read Every Single Word of the Bible, based on his “Blogging the Bible” series for Slate.
Birthday: Jan. 31, 1970
Hometown: Washington, D.C.
Education: BA from Harvard
Marital status: Married to Hanna Rosin of The Atlantic Monthly and DoubleX. Three kids.
First section of the Sunday Times: Book Review, Styles, KenKen
Favorite TV show: Friday Night Lights, Barclays Premier League Review Show
Guilty pleasure: “Bubble tea from Teaism every day”
Last book read: The Master Switch by Tim Wu
Twitter handle: @davidplotz

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How do you keep your employees motivated, or do you not worry about such a thing?

I worry about it a huge amount. I’m neither a fear-based nor a charismatic Vince Lombardi motivator. Not Tony Robbins either, I’m not tall enough, and my teeth are quite small. Slate has always been a writer-driven place and it’s pretty collegial. My goal is to make people feel as much as possible that they control the health and prosperity of the magazine by working together, by keeping an eye out for each other and depending on each other. I feel that with the sense of group solidarity that we all hang together and that it’s not only true, but is a motivator. I hope nobody at Slate writes stories out of fear, or sucking up. My goal, my hope, is people are doing the work they are doing because they sense that they will benefit all of us and Slate as a whole.

On the other hand, you can’t pretend that we don’t need to create traffic. That’s one of the reasons we do these Fresca projects [in-depth field reporting in which the writer takes a month off to complete a project]. One thing to motivate people is to structure their job so that it gives them wonderful, delightful time. Give them a special time each year, give them a whole month to work on something that is ambitious that can turn into something marvelous. It creates great journalism for Slate and delights readers, but it makes people feel good about working here, I hope.

Where does Slate fall ideologically and politically?
Slate doesn’t have a party line, an ideological platform or positions on anything. We never feel any obligation to cover an issue a particular way or to stake out a position or to serve some higher public good. Our view is the public good is served when we are honest and journalistically ambitious. If that means we are savaging something the right loves, fantastic. There is no intentional political activism at Slate. One thing we’ve done during the past few elections is everyone on staff says how they’ve voted. We publish it. It’s cool. It speaks well for our transparency so people can look and say that our work stands and falls based on its truth and integrity and consistency.

There is no effort to do political activism. We want to be engaged, but if we decide we write about health care, it is not to get it passed, but because Americans need to know about it. As long as the stories are smart and new and fresh, it doesn’t matter where they fall.

“Our view is the public good is served when we are honest and journalistically ambitious. If that means we are savaging something the right loves, fantastic.”

What do you look for in hiring someone?

The baseline for Slate is that you have to be really smart; you have to be really funny. You’ve got to get the joke. Once you get beyond those two, it’s just a huge infectious enthusiasm. That’s one of the things I love about [Dave] Weigel. He’s got a million ideas. He always wants to be in the game, always wanting to do the next thing. It’s great watching that. For younger people, it’s journalists with technical skills.

Where does opinion fit into writing?
Everyone’s always had opinions. The only thing made easier is the ability to broadcast your opinions more. We’re not a daily newspaper. We have a luxury that the Post doesn’t have. I don’t have to think about it. I don’t care if my writers are objective. I don’t care if they are biased. I know they are. Do they grapple with counter arguments to their point? Do they use fact in a fair and straightforward way and address facts that are counter to their thesis? As long as they are transparent about what they are doing, I think that’s great.

Speaking of which, you most recently brought on Dave Weigel. Have you known him over the years? How did you come to hire him?
I had not known Dave that long. I had not met him until we interviewed him. I knew his work. He was friends with Chris Beam and he’s known some of my other colleagues. When the Post dropped him, a number of people immediately within Slate said, we should talk to this guy. He just seemed to have the things we’re looking for — enthusiasm, expertise, brains — and was plugged in to a part of politics we weren’t covering heavily. [He] seemed like a great fit, and it has been fantastic. He has been a delight.

Isn’t his hire just a pass off from WaPo? You both are owned by the same company, so how is WaPo sending a message that it won’t tolerate biases in reporting when Slate picks him up?
I had no conversations with anyone at Post corporate until after the hire. No one said a word. After I made an offer, I called [executive editor] Marcus [Brauchli] and contacted people at corporate, and they were like, fine. I think the Post wished him well. Corporate folks were fine with it. We’re editorially independent. He has explained fully to my satisfaction those Journolist emails and that stuff on Twitter. I think his explanations are aces with me. In no sense was he handed off from the Post to us. In no sense was there an attempt to get approval from the company before we did it. It was the editorially right thing for us to do at that moment.

What is the personality of Slate and its readers?

Slate is the person at the cocktail party who is standing slightly aside and having the funniest conversation. I think it aspires to be smart, irreverent, funny, and kind of respect no sacred cows, to believe that all subjects are fit for discussion whether they be extremely serious or light.

Our readers are a lot like the magazine. They are very media literate. They are very tech literate. If you look at Slate readers, they blog at an incredible rate. They are very plugged into Web culture, but I don’t think they are techies. A fraction of them are. We are not a tech site in that way. They are interested in Web culture, but they are not high tech, they’re not Web developers. They’re probably not wildly dissimilar from The Economist, New Yorker readers, probably little bit younger than those.

What is Slate’s best story of this year?
The thing I’m proudest of at the moment is Emily Bazelon’s series on the Phoebe Prince case. For her Fresca project, Emily has been reporting the living daylights out of that story. The entire pop narrative of that story is wrong — that the bullies did much less than the prosecutor accused. That the girl had previous suicide attempts before and that she herself was a bully. [Bazelon] was on the Today show three times in three weeks. She’s based in New Haven.

What worries you most about the unstable newspaper business and what do you do, if anything, to ensure that Slate won’t go under?
We have to make Slate a really financially successful website with a huge devoted readership. We’re on the way, but we’re not there yet. We’re not printing money just yet. The instability of the newspaper business, there’s not much that we at Slate can do about it. We share a bunch of resources with the Post. If Don Graham has ideas for us to collaborate with the Post, then we’ll do it in a second. This happens in an informal way right now, meaning right now we do a bunch of collaboration — the Sunday business and living sections pick up Slate stuff and that’s awesome. [Executive editor] Marcus [Brauchli] and I have talked about certain personnel sharing that maybe we’ll try. But there’s not an overarching policy of how Slate and the Post should interact. We think of ideas, and we try them out.

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Betsy Rothstein is co-editor of FishbowlDC.

Call him a genius, call him a heretic, but don’t call him a pornographer. From first bringing bodacious bods to newsstands across America in the conservative 1950s, to later infiltrating cable television, to revealing all in his recent authorized documentary, Hugh Hefner: Playboy, Activist and Rebel, there’s always been an air of mystery surrounding Hugh Hefner and his empire. And with news breaking almost daily about the possible sale of Playboy, interest in what could be his next and some say his last chess move for the multimillion dollar company is only beginning to heat up.

Magazines, TV shows, films, even club casinos are just a few of the things Hefner says he envisions for the future of his company. And although some may feel he is in the sunset of his career, the iconic 84-year-old insists he’s not going anywhere.

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Name: Hugh Hefner
Position: Founder, editor-in-chief and chief creative officer of Playboy
Resume: Hefner worked as an assistant personnel manager for the Chicago Carton Company and as an advertising copywriter for the Carson Pirie Scott department store. He then went on to land a copywriter job at Esquire. But Hefner had his eye on a bigger vision, his own magazine. After failing to raise capital to launch a Chicago magazine, he tried again a year later collecting $8,000 from friends and family to launch the first issue of Playboy. The rest is history.
Birthday: April 9, 1926
Hometown: Chicago, Illinois
Education: Bachelor’s degree from University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign) with graduate courses in sociology at Northwestern University.
Marital status: Single
Twitter handle: @HughHefner

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When you began Playboy, what was your vision for it and how has the vision changed since its beginnings?
When I started the magazine in 1953, it was a very conservative decade, and I wanted to create a magazine for young single guys that were interested in the outdoor adventure of stag and odyssey, but who really connected to a life lived with a little style. The way you decorated your apartment, the clothes you wore, the car you drove and all of that, obviously connected to a romantic interest in the opposite sex. I think it remains essentially the same, the balance in terms of the heart and soul of the magazine remain essentially the same, but I think that the magazine contains smaller pieces now, less fiction. I think the reading habits of the people have changed.

What do you consider to be your duties as Playboy‘s editor-in-chief and chief creative officer?
Every day begins in my office here at the mansion in telephonic connection with my editors, my art director, etc. Planning the issue — rejecting or accepting covers, centerfolds, editorials, features, the layouts, etc. Then the second part of every day is usually involved in interviews, phone or otherwise. And then, in the evening, I spend time with my girls or the girlfriend and friends, and my life is fairly structured in that sense.

Why do you think Playboy would be better off as a private company?
I think it will simply be more secure, that’s all. We need more economic stability — and I just celebrated my 84th birthday and I decided the future is secure.

Describe your personal stake in Playboy. What do you want to see the company accomplish going forward?
What lies ahead is a very exciting time, even though the magazine, like a lot of other magazines and other prints [are] having some economic problems. The brand itself is hotter now on a global level than ever before, and we will be launching in the months immediately ahead a series of Playboy club casinos around the world. We are opening a club in London. We are opening a resort hotel down in South Beach, Florida all within the next year and a half. [There’s] Playboy branding, particularly men’s and women’s clothing and television. We have three television shows going at the same time. They are spinoffs of The Girls Next Door. We are going to be expanding into films, so I think that the future is bright because of the power of the brand.

“The Playboy name represents personal economic and political freedom, and that’s an export that has great appeal around the world.”

What do you consider to be Playboy’s chief asset as a company?
I think without question it is the iconic image itself. That rabbit, that trademark, is one of the most famous iconic trademarks in the entire world, and there is nothing else that really competes with it. There is no other sophisticated adult brand out there. So, we are in a very unique situation around the rest of the world. That rabbit and the Playboy name represents personal economic and political freedom, and that’s an export that has great appeal around the world.

You’ve said Playboy is undervalued. What do you think investors have been overlooking?
Well, [the investors are] probably not impressed by the bottom line. I can’t disagree with that. I don’t think we’ve been showing a very healthy P and L here in the recent past, but I also think they don’t really recognize what lies ahead.

What do you think of the current bidding war for Playboy Enterprises, including the offer from your competitor Penthouse‘s parent company FriendFinder Networks Inc.?
That’s all nonsense. That’s simply their attempt to get some press. Absolutely nothing to that — whatsoever. I am not selling my part of the company. I am buying shares.

Should one of them actually buy the company, what other criteria for the new company besides money would you like to be considered?
I would be considering partnering with people that supply synergism to what we are already doing. The businesses that compliment the businesses that we are in.

“My life is rather like a Rorschach test. I think people project a great deal of their own particular fantasies, dreams, and prejudices onto my life.”

After speaking with a few colleagues of yours, I understand that you’re an avid art collector, as well as a philanthropist. What would you say are some of the biggest misconceptions about you?
The misconception depends on who the person is. I think that I’ve said on more than one occasion, my life is an open book with illustrations. Some people know who I am very well. Some people have their own particular perceptions, fantasies, or prejudices to get in the way of their perceptions.

The documentary Hugh Hefner: Playboy, Activist and Rebel is the first time you’ve authorized such an in-depth look at your personal and business life. What do you think will be the most surprising to viewers?
It would depend very much on the viewer. I think that I expressed it a long time ago, that my life is rather like a Rorschach test or like an ink blot test. I think people project a great deal of their own particular fantasies, dreams, and prejudices onto my life. So, what a person gets out of this documentary and indeed what a person knows about my life depends on the individual. One of the virtues of this particular documentary we’ve made is that it focuses on the more serious side of my life, and I do think that it is done in such depth and done so well that even people who think they know me well are going to come away with some new insights.

You have had the image of a “playboy” for most of your career. How important has branding yourself in a certain light been in marketing the magazine?
I don’t think that the public image happened by accident. It certainly was a conscious connection to that and I don’t think [there was] any question with what the lifestyle reflected in the magazine. The more serious aspects of my life and the more serious aspects of the magazine tend to get hidden in the glare of the attention played on the pretty ladies.

One of your first jobs was as a copywriter for Esquire. Media has changed so dramatically since you began, what advice would you give the younger generation who are interested in delving into today’s marketplace?
The future of communication and entertainment obviously is very much connected to the Internet and if, for example, I was starting today, I would probably be doing something relating to the Internet rather than print. It’s a sad thing to say because I do think that we are a little less because of the way we get our information now. There are great virtues to the Internet, but we’ve also lost something. Young people don’t have much of a sense of yesterday.

What kind of legacy would you like to leave behind?
I’d like to be remembered as somebody who played some positive part in changing social sexual values of my time, and I think I am pretty secure in that.

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Jeff Rivera is the author of Forever My Lady (Grand Central) and a regular correspondent for GalleyCat and The Huffington Post.

Author Jennifer Weiner burst onto the scene in 2001 with Good in Bed, a novel about a modern-day plus-size heroine who gets the fairy tale ending. The book became a word-of-mouth hit, and Weiner’s been burning up the keyboard ever since, turning out another five novels in as many years, along with a collection of short stories. All told, her books have sold 11 million copies in 36 countries, one was made into a Hollywood movie (In Her Shoes, with Cameron Diaz and Shirley MacLaine), and ABC even gave Weiner a development deal. Now, Redbook is serializing a new story in its July and August issues, and the former newspaper reporter and magazine columnist just inked a new four-book deal with her publisher, Atria.

With her latest novel Fly Away Home, about a 57-year-old politician’s wife confronting her husband’s infidelity, now in stores, Mediabistro caught up with Weiner to talk about the things she wish she’d known when she first started and why tweeting commentary on The Bachelorette makes for a good marketing strategy.

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Name: Jennifer Weiner
Position: Novelist
Resume: Reporter, Centre Daily Times, State College, Penn., 1991-1994. Reporter, Lexington Herald-Leader, 1994. Reporter and columnist, Philadelphia Inquirer, 1995-2001. Author of Good in Bed (2001), In Her Shoes (2002), Little Earthquakes (2004), Goodnight Nobody (2005), The Guy Not Taken (2006), Certain Girls (2008), Best Friends Forever (2009), and Fly Away Home (2010). In Her Shoes was made into a major motion picture in 2005, starring Cameron Diaz, Toni Collette and Shirley MacLaine.
Birthday: March 28, 1970
Hometown: Born in DeRidder, La., raised in Simsbury, Conn.
Education: Graduated summa cum laude from Princeton University in 1991 with a bachelor’s degree in English literature.
Family: “I live with my family in Philadelphia.”
First section of the Sunday Times: “I read the ‘Book Review’ online. Bitterly.”
Favorite TV show: “God help me, The Bachelor.”
Guilty pleasure: “I don’t think pleasures are ever guilty! But: Reality TV.”
Last book read: One Day, by David Nicholls
Twitter handle: @jenniferweiner. “Because I’m just that creative.”

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How did the new four-book deal with Atria come about?
I had written the last book in my previous contract. My agent and I sat down and looked at the landscape, looked at ebooks, and looked at marketing and publishing and all the stuff we think is going on. We talked about where I am in my life and what I wanted to be doing. We decided the book-a-year approach made sense for me. Four books felt ambitious, like it was me committing to my publisher in a very real way, and my publisher committing to me in a very real way. But not 12 books. Who knows what the world’s going to look like in 12 years. We think we know what it’s going to look like in four.

You mentioned ebooks. How did those play into this deal?
Ebooks are about 20 percent of my sales, which is higher than average for contemporary fiction and tells me that my readers are early adopters of these technologies. It’s interesting to watch people go off on their own and say, “I’m going to deal directly with Amazon,” or “I’m going to sell directly to the Kindle.” That wasn’t anything I was interested in doing. I’ve got a fantastic relationship with my publisher, and I really appreciate all of their support in terms of editing and marketing and promotion. But it’s fun to watch other authors do different things with the new technologies. Not for me yet.

“There are people in publishing who fervently believe that a book is worth $27 and would like readers to believe that, as well. If the answer is $9.99 [ebooks], publishing is going to have to adjust.”

This new four-book deal came almost 10 years to the day after you sold your first book. What changes have you’ve seen in the publishing industry over the past decade that most impact you on the business end?
Any writer will tell you that the biggest change in the marketplace has been the writer as promoter of her own work. Ten years ago, people were hanging on to the idea that the writer’s job was to write this wonderful, smart, funny, engrossing, relatable book, and you would give it to your publisher, and they would make the magic happen. You could just go back to your apartment and work on your next one, and the publisher would be as busy as elves in their workshop, getting the word out and promoting it and getting it into all the right readers’ hands. I think I was smart and lucky to recognize early on something that all writers seem take as gospel at this point, which is that nobody is going to be a more passionate advocate of your first novel than you are.

How about the Kindle? Some people in publishing think it’s killing the book business. Do you agree?
No, I don’t at all. It’s causing a lot of fear because of that $9.99 price point. I feel that that big question, “What is a work of fiction worth?” has been answered. Amazon, in setting that price, is announcing to the world that a work of fiction, no matter how many years it took to write it, no matter how many people edited it, no matter how long the cover design or the page design took, a book is worth $9.99. (Unless it’s worth $14.99 its first week of release.) It’s a tough pill to swallow. Because there are people in publishing who fervently believe that a book is worth $27 and would like readers to believe that, as well. If the answer is $9.99, publishing is going to have to adjust. I don’t know if those adjustments are going to come in the form of lower advances, different royalty structures for ebooks, or what.

“Nobody is going to be a more passionate advocate of your first novel than you are.”

In Her Shoes was made into a film, and you and your sister were cast as extras. How involved were you in the screenplay and the production?
I had a film critic friend tell me that a novelist trying to adapt her own book was like a mother trying to circumcise her own son. Let somebody else cut. I made a decision really early on that I had told the story I wanted to tell in the book. The book was done. It was published and in bookstores. Nobody was going to go into bookstores and start changing what I’d written. So I said I’m going to let the movie be the filmmaker’s story to tell. And I wound up really, really pleased with every choice they made. I loved the screenplay. I was very happy with the casting. I was very happy with the movie.

From the big screen to the small screen: What happened to the pilot you were working on for ABC?
I had a two-year development deal with ABC in which I wrote a half-hour pilot and an hour-long pilot. I came really close with both of them, but eventually neither one wound up getting picked up, which was a little heartbreaking. But it was a really incredible learning experience in terms of how things work out there [in Hollywood] and how things make the journey from “I have this idea for a show” to you turn on your TV set at eight o’clock and there it is. It’s a lot more collaborative than writing a novel. I was working with different writing partners for the pilots, and I really liked that part of that. You’d get notes, and I think for people out there, it’s like, “Ugh, another notes call.” But for me, it was, “Yay, I get to hear what somebody thinks.” Because when you write a novel, your publisher is like, “Great, we’ll see you in a year.” I liked the back-and-forth of television.

You’re a big social media user. You tweet, Facebook, and blog a lot. Do you have any sense of what impact that has on book sales?
When I ask people who come to my readings how many of them are my Facebook friends, half the hands go up. But I don’t know if it’s creating new fans or creating more feeling of connection among existing fans. I would hope it’s both. One of the things I do do is, every week, I live-tweet The Bachelor or The Bachelorette. [Ed. Note: Sample tweet: “Ty pronounces himself ‘tickled to death’ that Ali has ambitions. Betty Friedan rolls over in her grave; gives him the finger.”] And I would get a couple hundred new followers every time I did this. And at the end of the night, I would say, “Welcome new followers, thanks for joining in. By the way, I also write books.” And then I’d say something like, “They’re like tweets, but all strung together.” And then I’d direct them to my website. I hope they back into it that way.

“You realize you’re making certain trade-offs when your first book is called Good in Bed, and there’s naked legs and cheesecake on the cover.”

What are three things that you wish you’d known 15 years ago?
I wish I would have known how little the New York Times review would matter. Like every writer, I bought into the myth that you haven’t written a book until The New York Times takes notice. I remember realizing it wasn’t going to happen. You realize you’re making certain trade-offs when your first book is called Good in Bed, and there’s naked legs and cheesecake on the cover. One of the things you’re letting go of is the idea that Michiko Kakutani is going to take your galley home for the weekend. I wish I’d known it’s okay to be called “a delightful beach romp.” Lots of people want to read a delightful beach romp.

Second, I should never, ever go to the art department with an idea for a book cover, because all of my ideas are crap. I would tell the me of 10 years ago: Just let the cover be the cover. You just tell the story.

And third, like many writers, I had the fantasy that, once I had a book contract, everyone would be nice to me. Because they’d think, “What if I’m not nice? Maybe, she’ll put me in her book, and I won’t like it.” It doesn’t work that way. No one’s nice to you because you have a book deal. And the people you try to settle scores with by putting them in the book, generally by the time I’m through five or six drafts, they’re so altered that I don’t even remember who it was supposed to be anymore.

Your books are in print in 36 countries, and yet your stories seem very specific to the lives of women in Western countries. What do you hear from readers in non-Western countries?
It’s the body stuff. The one thing the West has managed to 100 percent successfully export is distorted ideals of what it means to have a good body as a woman. Women all over the world have told me, “I’ve been on a diet since I was… (insert ridiculously young age). I’ve never been able to feel good in my own skin, and I never thought I could have a happy ending looking the way I look. Thank you for writing books where someone who looks like me gets the happy ending.”

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E.B. Boyd is a freelance journalist based in San Francisco.

Chicago chef and restaurateur Rick Bayless wears many toques. Best known for raising the profile of Mexican cuisine in America over the past quarter century, he’s also a major media figure outside the kitchen. He holds the title of Top Chef Masters winner, hosts his own PBS show, Mexico: One Plate at a Time, and his seventh cookbook, Fiesta at Rick’s, hits shelves July 5. And in his spare time (read: the duration of an elevator ride from his office to the rear entrance of the Frontera Grill kitchen), he’s taken to Twitter like mole to a flame.

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Name: Rick Bayless
Position: Chef/owner of Frontera Grill, Topolobampo, and XOCO in Chicago. Host of PBS’s Mexico: One Plate at a Time
Resume: Founded Chicago restaurants Frontera Grill and Topolobampo in 1987. Began the Frontera Farmer Foundation in 2003 to attract support for small Midwestern farms. Owner, Frontera Foods prepared food items. Winner of Bravo’s Top Chef Masters, season one. Author of seven cookbooks.
Birthday: November 23, 1953
Hometown: Oklahoma City
Education: University of Michigan
Marital status: Married
First section of the Sunday Times: “I always read the book section first.”
Favorite TV show: Modern Family
Guilty pleasure: Doughnuts
Last book read: Momofuku by David Chang
Twitter handle: @Rick_Bayless

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How can a cookbook author convey some personality while also explaining how to prepare a dish?
I try to keep my recipes as clean and clear as possible and then I always find one or two places, maybe three, in the recipe where I can interject something that’s in my own voice that’s personal. I can’t stand to read recipes that look like they were generated by a computer. I actually want to know that my cookbook author, the person that I’m reading, has actually made that dish.

What most people want in a cookbook is a voice. They want somebody to help them through it and they want to know that you know what it’s like for them to be in their own kitchen. When it gets to those once in a lifetime kinds of dishes, those just take a lot of words. If it’s complex dish that somebody’s going to build up to, they’re going to buy the ingredients, get all the preparations done — usually the really complicated dishes are made over several days — you don’t want to oversimplify it because then they get in the middle of it and they go, “Oh my god, what did I get into?” You really want to break it down for them and hold their hand through it, but also don’t tell them, being really wordy, “Now it’s going to start to turn a little gold and then after that it will brown a little bit more.” Be concise and reassuring to people without being too wordy.

“You should never underestimate the power of a local groundswell.”

What’s your advice for authors who are trying to promote their latest book?
The more successful you are in one area, if it’s food related, the more people will be willing to talk to you about your book. But when I was just starting out, I did all the same things that everybody else did. I found a way to promote in places where people were thinking about food. [At] the farmer’s market that I’m the board of here in Chicago, we have a really strong educational initiative, and we have a couple of chefs that come and do demos, and if they’ve got cookbooks they promote them. Those kinds of things can be really positive ways to promote. Of course the best thing you can get is any sort of national placement. But at the same time, if it’s just on the national forum, you have to balance that with letting the local people you like them, too. I would say that you set your sights as high as you can set them. and then you realize that the more of a solid local base that you have, the more solid your foundation is and those people won’t ever turn away from you. Will they boost your cookbook sales up really high? No. But they’ll be the people who keep coming back, and you’ll be a part of their community so that they’ll refer more to friends and stuff like that. I think you should never underestimate the power of a local groundswell.

What’s the biggest difference for you between filming a reality show like Top Chef Masters and then your PBS show, Mexico: One Plate at a Time? What’s it like on set?
On set it’s really different, it’s totally freewheeling and there’s nothing that is very staged at all in Top Chef Masters. I didn’t know going in whether I was going to find the whole thing to be less than real reality, you know? But it actually was. What you see is what you got, basically, and we didn’t have lots of extra time. There were times when we were all back there washing pots and pans, and it was hard. They didn’t give you any support at all. You never knew was what going to happen.

My show is not scripted, but it’s got everything is very carefully laid out, I know I’ve got three and a half minutes for this scene, and I know I’ve got to convey all this information, and I’m going to get from point A to point B so I can go into the next scene. So that’s much more about me being a teacher. What you were seeing in Top Chef Masters was me being a chef who was just reacting to whatever was thrown my way. And of course in our shows, I know what’s going to be thrown my way because I helped write it.

In a recent New York Times article, the writer said you’re “one the rare celebrity chefs who can own multiple restaurants, appear on TV, sell frozen pizzas and not seem like a jerky sellout.” What’s your advice for other very visible media personalities in staying real on camera and not appearing like a jerky sellout?
I think the jerky sellout thing really doesn’t come from being on camera because it’s not something that would translate into being on camera. The jerky sellout stuff is when people think they can do more than they can do, and so they just tackle it all. They open restaurants that they don’t have staff to open that are trained enough, they write books about topics they really don’t know anything about, and they hire someone to ghostwrite it for them and it becomes just a concept book that’s just got some recipes to put on a shelf. Or when they endorse every product that comes along, and there’s no rhyme or reason to what they’re doing.

Television’s a very different thing. The one thing that most people will tell you is when you’re thinking about doing television is, “Can you break through the lens?” You can really tell the people who can do it and the people that can’t. That’s one thing that I always recommend to people like do a kind of screen test, you can usually find someone who will set up a camera and shoot you. Play around with it and see, do you think that you have what it takes to do that? Mostly what people want to see in people who are doing food on camera is that you can break through that lens and become the person’s friend.

“I’ve got this community of people that are loving seeing what other people are making, and they’re getting it through my Twitter feed.”

Let’s talk about Twitter. You’re sharing your advice and news with nearly 57,000 fans, you give people feedback for their Twitpics…
That’s my favorite thing, it just happened sort of spontaneously that somebody took a picture of what they had made from one of my books and they posted it to me because they all know that I take pictures of everything I cook and I post it to them. So somebody did the same thing back to me and I thought wow, I was showing my wife, “Look, look it’s beautiful,” and she said you should repost that. So I reposted that and then other people started doing the same thing. I’m really happy because now I’ve got this community of people that are loving seeing what other people are making, and they’re getting it through my Twitter feed.

You recently got to cook at the White House, and then you took a little heat from the Chicago Sun-Times for allegedly tweeting where you weren’t supposed to. Why did you use Twitter to set the record straight?
Because that’s my form. I’m a Twitter baby, I have no other mouthpiece besides Twitter right now. That’s kind of hilarious, but it’s true. I thought it was incredibly poor journalism. And I was shocked beyond belief that somebody would think that I would do something like that. Yes, I post a lot on Twitter and yes I posted what my feelings were about going into the White House, but I would never do it in there. Even when people around us were taking pictures, I told my crew no pictures because I felt like that we needed to be invited to do that — because there’s a lot of things I don’t know about the running of the White House. I don’t presume to know that kind of thing, and I was going to be very respectful. I thought that was really, really unconscionable that Lynn Sweet posted that I was breaking all kinds of rules by tweeting from the White House. I was never going to do that. Anyway, I got a public apology.

What do you think about food bloggers taking pictures in restaurants?
I think it’s absolutely fine. I take pictures of everything I eat. The only thing I have to say is flashes are not good. If you’re flashing, flashing, flashing, I’m sorry, it can be very disruptive to the room. Now that everybody’s got cameras with them all the time because most of them are built into the phones, it’s gotten pretty crazy that no matter where you are or who announces what, everybody will take pictures. I was just doing a public demonstration with somebody else, [and] there was an announcement made that there was not to be any photos. So we both walked out on the stage, and it was just a roar of flashes going off. When it gets to be like that, then I think the food bloggers just have to chill out. I guess maybe we need to publish a little booklet on food bloggers etiquette.

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Blake Gernstetter is mediabistro.com’s associate editor.

When it comes to women of color in radio, the ranks are thin. Yet, over the course of a two-decade career, Wendy Williams established herself as a force to be reckoned with and was inducted into the Radio Hall Of Fame alongside legends like Franklin D. Roosevelt, Edward R. Murrow, and Dick Clark. While she attempted to make the transition to television several times throughout her career, her latest venture, The Wendy Williams Show, has showcased her talents in a way that has spelled immediate success with ratings high enough to extend her contract through 2012.

“When I got the news, I was elated,” says Williams. “It’s such a sign to me that I’m in the right game. I love my job and wouldn’t have my career trajectory [go] any other way.” Here, the self-professed “outsized personality” dishes on life, broadcasting, and, oh yeah, the wigs.

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Name: Wendy Williams
Position: Host, The Wendy Williams Show
Resume: Landed a radio gig in the Virgin Islands after college; held stints at a number of New York radio stations, most notably at WQHT (Hot 97) and WBLS, where she reigned in ratings and was syndicated in a dozen cities. After several attempts at television productions, including the short-lived Wendy Williams Experience on VH1, she’s now the host of her own eponymous daytime talk show seen in 18 of the top 20 markets throughout the country.
Birthdate: July 18th
Hometown: Ocean Township, New Jersey
Education: Northeastern University: BA Communications and Journalism
Marital status: Married with one son
First section of the Sunday Times: “I usually read the Daily News and head straight for the ‘Radio’ and ‘TV’ section. When I do read the Sunday Times, I go immediately to the ‘Style’ section. And I’m not going to deny that I read the National Enquirer, too.”
Favorite TV show: Judge Judy, The People’s Court. “I love all the court shows.”
Guilty pleasure: “Whitefish! It’s an acquired taste and many people don’t like it. You have to eat it with your fingers — that’s part of the experience. You don’t heat it up. Just open it and dig in.”
Last book read: Poor Little Bitch Girl by Jackie Collins
Twitter handle: @wendyshow

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Why transition from radio to television?
Who wouldn’t? Name one person who wouldn’t. Even if they had a fabulous career in another segment of the media. I was ready for the next step. I’ve been inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame. I have inspired many women to get into radio, specifically girls in college. Radio was great. But once I got my first taste of television in 1993, I was sold: hook, line, and sinker. The Wendy Williams Show. By myself. On prime time. That became the dream.

“It takes more than good conversation to make good television.”

During the sneak peek of The Wendy Williams Show, did you feel confident that the show would do well?
I felt confident in myself, but no, I didn’t think, ‘I’ve got this.’ Every day I got better and better. I was confident that if this show didn’t get picked up, I’d done it all to try to make it happen. It’s been a learning experience, for sure. Ask me anything about radio, I know it. Television? I’m still learning. It takes more than good conversation to make good television.

What’s the biggest difference between a radio audience and a live audience?

They can see me. That’s it. Well, that and the fact that television is
a one-hour show, not a five-hour show. The segments are seven minutes, so it’s very fast-paced.

What do you miss about radio?
If I had to really think about, I think I might miss the intimacy of radio. How I had to describe things to my listeners. But honestly, there is not much I miss about radio after 23 years. I hugged it, said goodbye, and wished it well.

But on your last day on the air, you suggested that you could return to radio. Will you?
I don’t know. I like it enough. I left a great career in radio. And now my television show has been renewed through 2012. I’ll be here for a while.

Why does your traditional talk show work in a way that your other forays into television didn’t?
This time, I was encouraged to be absolutely me. That wasn’t always the case in the other shows. And this time, people who know me well surrounded me. If you’re getting hired on my show, you know the essence of the topics. You just have to get it. And everyone on my show gets it. That’s a major part of why I think it works.

Oprah’s retiring next year. Tyra has recently decided to move on. Do you think they will resurface? How might that affect your show, if at all?
It’s not like I have no competition. The playing field is still there. If it’s not them, there will be someone else. There won’t be a shortage of talk show hosts. Their exit only means that they have paved the way for me. I can only dream of having that kind of run. Give me five years, and I’m ecstatic.

You were already well-known from your radio show. Do you have a different demographic recognizing you now?
Absolutely! I have all kinds of people who are just now discovering me through television. I hear all the time: ‘I didn’t know about your radio show, but I love you on television.’ They talk about my interviews with Toni Braxton and Fran Drescher — and then they talk about how I tilt my wig and how the show is so colorful and full of personality. I love it. I feel like I’m really giving people what they want, and that’s a great feeling. Especially when you can be yourself while you’re doing it. Television of course has a much bigger range than radio, and I have to say this is the first time I’ve felt like an actual celebrity. I’ve always been known in the New York radio market. But folks in Tallahassee didn’t know me from the radio. Now they do.

“My motto is, ‘I’m a mess, you’re a mess.’ Let’s have fun with it anyway. It makes me relatable to my audience.”

Television is a beast. It is not an easy job. And the level of visibility doesn’t always make me comfortable as a mother. My son and I are being recognized in the street now. I still live my life. I still run errands on the weekends with my son. So now, I have a pair of sunglasses for him to put on if necessary. I just want to protect him as much as I can from too much exposure. And for myself, the Wendy Williams that you see on television is very different than who you might run into at Target on a Saturday morning. I don’t wear makeup in the street. I try to be as plain Jane as possible.

Your husband was always very involved in all of your projects when you were on the radio. Is he still a major part of your business team?
Of course. My husband is one of the executive producers of the show, and it’s wonderful working together. I can count on him to keep it ultra real with me at all times. He’s not the one who is going to be front and center at events. He’s the mack in the back. He doesn’t want to be photographed on the red carpet. Sometimes, I’ll tell him to just stand on the other side of the red carpet so I can see him. He’ll give me non-verbal cues on how my hair and makeup look, how to adjust my dress. All that stuff. He’s a comfort, and he’s always there for me.

You were known for being very straightforward and frank during your radio interviews. How have you had to adapt that interviewing style for TV?
I’m just as straightforward now as I was in radio. Asking questions is nothing for me. If you’re going to work in this business, you should be able to have a conversation with anyone. And I’m equal opportunity with my openness. I’m just as open as I expect my guests to be. In television, traditionally, you don’t tell your age. You’re conscious of fat angles and weight. You don’t let it all hang out. I’m just the opposite. I let it all hang out. I don’t walk like a supermodel; I’m teetering in my heels. My motto is, ‘I’m a mess, you’re a mess.’ Let’s have fun with it anyway. It makes me relatable to my audience. That kind of openness comes with maturity and growth. Twenty years ago, I would have been wearing two-inch heels so that I didn’t look too tall. Now, I wear what I like, I project what I like. I’m fully myself on camera.

You showcase your outfits and share other tidbits on Twitter and your website. How have you found the experience of social media to be helpful?
I Tweet. But it’s not my favorite thing. I think many forms of social media are responsible for a lot of miscommunication. I’m speaking from the field of communication. There is something to be said for looking someone in the eye when you’re communicating. And that’s what worked for me throughout my career — I always talked my way into everything. The idea of talking — not just emailing — is something I feel very passionate about. I’m on Twitter because I have a show and social media is a way to promote my show. I get that. But I have reservations, too.

You’ve endured several setbacks in your career, including your exit from Hot 97 and your previous TV shows that didn’t survive. Taking from those experiences, what advice would you give another media professional who is laid off or has been recently fired?

I hope you saved your money. When push comes to shove, you may have to sell Estee Lauder at Macy’s. It may not match your tax bracket. But you’ll have to do what’s necessary. I have to say I’ve been very blessed in that area. I’ve had my share of scrapes and bruises. But I’ve never been unemployed for more than two weeks, and that was back in 1991. I went from Hot 103.9, and two weeks later I was at WPLJ.

Radio has changed so much since when you first started. What advice would you give to someone who is looking to break into the business now?
Make sure you have a Plan B. A very solid plan B.

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Aliya S. King is an author of two works of nonfiction and an upcoming novel. She also blogs at www.aliyasking.com and Tweets even more @aliyasking.

“I never thought of myself as a writer,” says Jamie Foster Brown. “It was something other people encouraged me to do because of my interview style and the way I described the behind-the-scenes of the music industry.” That knack for getting inside the heads of celebrities has made her the Larry King of urban media. “Sister 2 Sister is not a place where we drag people’s names through the mud,” she says. “We just tell the truth. And encourage our subjects to do the same.”

This approach has led to a magazine with a 22-year history. Sister 2 Sister now boasts 200,000 in circulation — not People or Us Weekly numbers — but Brown does it with a full-time staff of just five. Keeping overhead small has helped her outlive and keep pace with many of her competitors at a time when the death knell is sounding for print titles. (And she plans to keep on winning, even as mainstream publishing houses, like Harris Publications, aim for her coveted female demo.) Brown details the rise of her magazine from a newsletter to a glossy, why she’s okay with being labeled “friendly press,” and the one place online will never beat print.

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Name: Jamie Foster Brown
Position: Publisher of Sister 2 Sister
Resume: Worked for Black Entertainment Television (BET) as an advertising secretary to the network’s founder, Robert Johnson. Eventually produced the station’s flagship shows: Video Soul and Video LP. In 1988, founded Sister 2 Sister, a monthly trade newsletter that has since expanded into a celebrity-based glossy. In 1998 she wrote Betty Shabazz: A Sisterfriends’ Tribute in Words and Pictures, published by Simon and Schuster.
Education: B.A. University of Stockholm
Birthdate: June 25
Hometown: Chicago
Marital status: Married 41 years, two sons.
First section of the Sunday Times: “I don’t really read papers.”
Favorite TV show: “I watch a lot of USA. Psych. Monk.“
Guilty pleasure: “I drink two or three cups of coffee a day. But they’re all decaf.”
Last book read: Hammer by Armand Hammer
Twitter handle: “I’m not on Twitter. The Internet world… I haven’t given it a lot of thought. I’m already overwhelmed with emails, phone calls, text messages…”

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Why did you start Sister 2 Sister 22 years ago?
It started out as my thoughts on the music industry. I had worked as Bob Johnson’s secretary in the very early days of BET. I’d moved up to programming shows like Donnie Simpson’s Video Soul. I was in close proximity to a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff. And even though I didn’t think of myself as a writer, I knew I had stories to tell.

Stories like what?
I was at the Soul Train Awards in 1987. Whitney Houston performed and got booed. The audience thought she was acting “too white.” And I looked out in the audience and saw many people wearing blue and green contact lenses. Those kinds of stories. I wanted to write about what I saw — things other people didn’t necessarily see. In Europe, you have royalty. We have celebrities. Who decides who becomes a celebrity? They are not born. They are made. So I was always interested in what goes on behind the scenes.

How did the early days at BET prepare you for running Sister 2 Sister?
I made sure the artists were at the studio two hours before the show started. And then I would find myself babysitting the artists and the executives during that time. I would end up interviewing them just for my own knowledge. And then it turned into me feeding the host questions based on what I’d learned: ‘Ask him what happened to him in third grade.’

“I care about the people I cover… Some call it ‘friendly press.’ And that may be. But I know when certain urban artists have something to say, they’re coming to me to say it.”

Eventually, you even started breaking artists. How did that happen?
We were in competition with MTV. MTV had videos. Our artists didn’t always have a video. So I might take someone like Full Force, bring them into the studio, tell them to lip sync to one of their songs and boom, we’ve got a video to play.

Once you entered publishing, were you able to use the same techniques, in terms of fostering a close relationship with the artists you covered?
Absolutely. I interact with the majority of the people I cover outside of work. I check in on their lives. What’s going on with mom’s health? How are the children? I care about the people I cover. And that comes out in my writing. Some call it “friendly press.” And that may be. But I know when certain urban artists have something to say, they’re coming to me to say it.

Your interviews in Sister 2 Sister are notoriously lengthy. How do you get an artist to talk to you for hours?
When someone says, ‘I only have 20 minutes,’ I don’t do the interview. And I don’t ask questions like, ‘Who’s your major musical influence?’ I have a responsibility to my readers. They let you into their homes every day. They spend hard-earned money on your music and tours. These artists have to teach. They have to give information. Some of the celebrities I cover have more influence than people who save lives every day. You owe them an in-depth interview!

You don’t have a high opinion of celebrity blogging. What are your issues with it?
Most of the links sent my way, I don’t like it. It feels like we’re eating our young. We take these brand-new celebrities and just chew them up to pieces about what they’re wearing, how they look, how big or small they are. That’s a cancer. You have people judging other people just for the sport. These words are unwholesome. A little ember can cause a lot of damage. You have children who kill themselves over cyber bullying. Why bully people on a blog?

“We started all this with a Visa card. We could never get investors. I didn’t even know I could write!”

How have you stayed afloat financially when so many magazines have gone under?
We’re very frugal people. We have a staff of eight [to] nine people. So we don’t have a huge overhead. We started all this with a Visa card. We could never get investors. I didn’t even know I could write! This had to be divine intervention. And then, there’s my husband, an earth angel. He’ll whip up homemade sausage for breakfast with celebrities who come by my home to be interviewed. My husband’s special. He quit his job 20 years ago and said, ‘I’m gonna go work for my wife.’ They don’t make them like that anymore.

What is the future of print journalism? Are you prepared to take the magazine online to be read on something like the iPad or the Kindle?
It’s online now. But the people I put in my magazine? They are not satisfied with being online. I will sometimes say, ‘I’ll put this online,’ and the answer is always, ‘No. Put it in the magazine.’ For the celebrities I cover, there is nothing like seeing yourself at a newsstand and buying copies for grandma and mom. A magazine can be on the table. And besides, you don’t get in-depth information online. You just get snippets.

So you’re really pro-print.
Are you sitting on the toilet reading your laptop?

You get your subjects to say things they don’t tell the mainstream media. Many times, you and I have interviewed the same subject and your story will contain much more than I could get. What do you attribute this to?
My celebrities know, I’m not talking to you because I want to hurt you. I want your side of the story. And I will mix it in with my opinion.

But does it bother you that people may be more open with you because the print run for Sister 2 Sister is not as large as Vibe or Ebony or Essence? Perhaps they feel like they can be more open because less people may read it?
Doesn’t bother me at all. I provide a niche service for a special audience. And they are devoted, loyal fans.

I’m 36 and I find it harder and harder to keep up with who’s who in entertainment. Do you have a tough time keeping up with young hip-hop acts that you cover in the magazine?
I try. But I don’t stay on top of it as much as I could. It’s overwhelming. That’s what my staff does for me. I can’t keep track of what’s on BET or MTV. There’s so many artists out there. You know, it’s funny, my girlfriend asked me to set her up with a man, 50 years old or older. I said, how am I supposed to do that? I don’t know anyone my own age! I’m surrounded by people under-30 all day. The celebrities I cover? They come to interviews with a van full of people. None of them over 30. And I hug and kiss them all.

And your husband doesn’t mind?
I told you, the man’s an angel!

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Aliya S. King is an author of two works of nonfiction and an upcoming novel. She also blogs at www.aliyasking.com and Tweets even more @aliyasking.

Alan Richman’s food writing career was an accident. In 1975, the then-sportswriter began moonlighting as a restaurant critic and eventually got a gig at GQ which led to his meteoric rise as the most decorated food writer in history. The “Meryl Streep” of the James Beard Foundation Journalism Awards, the GQ contributor boasts 14 wins and 29 nominations, including three this year. He’s spent the last three decades traveling the globe to bring insightful, often funny and sometimes cranky, food stories to the table. Fearless in the face of Neapolitan pizza lovers yet comically threatened by a 12-year-old boy, Richman firmly believes all good food writing starts with good journalism — the first lesson he teaches his students at the French Culinary Institute of New York.

Ahead of the 2010 James Beard Foundation Journalism Awards, Richman talks to mediabistro.com about crafting his award-winning stories, honing his voice as a food writer, and the “disastrous” rise of citizen criticism.

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Name: Alan Richman
Position: Freelance food and wine writer; Dean of Food Journalism at The French Culinary Institute in New York City
Resume: Started as a news editor at The Portland (Indiana) Commercial Review in 1967 before moving to The Philadelphia Bulletin, where he was an NBA beat writer from 1969-1974. Joined The Montreal Star as sports columnist from 1974-1977, was a sportswriter, columnist, and assistant managing editor at The Boston Globe from 1977-1979 and from 1980-1985; he worked as a Metro reporter for The New York Times in between. Was a writer-at-large for People. Has been GQ‘s food and wine critic since 1989.
Birthday: January 25, 1944
Hometown: Philadelphia, Pa.
Education: BA, University of Pennsylvania
Marital status: Divorced
First section of the Sunday Times: “Who can afford the New York Times anymore?”
Favorite TV show: “None whatsoever, but my last one was Buffy The Vampire Slayer (before she went to college).”
Guilty pleasure: “SyFy channel, for films such as Spring Break Shark Attack, or at least the first 15 minutes of them.”
Last book read: Ian Rankin detective novel, The Naming of the Dead
Twitter handle: “What?”

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You began your journalism career as a sports writer, so what made you realize you wanted to write about food?
I once had a sports editor who said I was the best sports writer he ever saw that didn’t know anything about sports. And I don’t think he was exactly correct. I know a lot about sports, but I wasn’t immersed in just loving every detail, in the minutiae of sports the way really successful sports writers do. For a long time, for fun I did food stories. I was the sports columnist for the Montreal Star in 1975 and 1976, and at the same time under a pseudonym I was the restaurant critic for the Montreal Star. Whatever anybody asked me to do with food, I always just wrote about it, and eventually I got a break, which didn’t come until around ’90 or ’91. That’s how I became a food writer. It was by accident.

How did you hone your voice as a food writer?
I’ll give you a quick story. I’d written a really good story for [GQ editor Art Cooper]. We were having a meeting and he said to me, “You know that was my idea.” And I said to him, “No Art, that wasn’t your idea, that was my idea, but I was your idea.” Basically I had an editor who believed in me, who not only believed in me, knew what I could do and knew what he could get out of me, and also very fortuitously, what he wanted from his writers was what I could do best, but neither of us knew that when I took the job. Art Cooper was the editor who wanted voice and he wanted individuality and he wanted writers to really say what they felt like saying. He wanted me to be the voice of food, he didn’t want me to interview other people and let them be the voice of food. In fact, every time I’d say something like, “Wolfgang Puck is coming to town, should I interview and ask him what he thinks about the new trends?” Art Cooper would say, “No, I want you to tell me what you think of the new trends.” Voice was everything with Art.

“I’m not a foodie, but if there was such a thing as a restaurantie, I would be that.”

Being funny in print is not very easy. What’s your advice for infusing writing with humor?
If you’re not funny you can’t make it funny. […] If you look at my stories, they’re not that funny. I mean I go along writing and I just write pretty simple stuff, pretty clear plain sentences and all of a sudden I just zing one in there. You have to know when to do it and you have to know how much of it you can do and, you know, when to stop.

One of the things I tell people is write your first draft of the story as though you’re writing a letter to a friend, with all kinds of casualness and all kinds of wise guy remarks. Then you have to be able to look back at it in the rewriting and say, ‘Do any of these work, are any of these successful, are these jokes funny?’ And then you have to learn where to put them in the joke. I mean, every joke I write in my first draft doesn’t go into my story, thank God.

You’ve traveled the globe; I know you’ve been a million places with a fork in one hand and a pen in the other. Which of those is your most memorable experience?
I still love restaurants more than anything. I think I love restaurants more than I love food. Because restaurants have everything in them: They have the people, they have the food, they have the wine, they have the experience, they have the possibility of enjoying yourself with the person across the table from you. I’m not a foodie, but if there was such a thing as a restaurantie, I would be that.

Every great restaurant experience to me is my favorite thing I’ve ever done, if that makes any sense. And it never stops. If it happens today, I’m just as happy as I was 30 or 40 years ago.

“The one way in which my restaurant reviews differ from others is I try to do storytelling more than most people.”

How do you begin crafting a story around a dining experience?
I have two things in mind when I do a review. Number one, I want to say something really interesting about the restaurant. I want to make the experience I had there, at least I’m trying to do this, something that the reader can enjoy reading, because restaurant reviewing is really about taking the person into the restaurant with you and having them either enjoy or hate the experience as you have enjoyed or hated the experience.

The second thing I try to do is somewhere in that story give some sort of indication in my opinion what this restaurant is all about. Give some sort of feeling that this is the essence of this restaurant, this is what this restaurant is trying to do and whether they’re doing it successfully or not. I think the one way in which my restaurant reviews differ from others is I try to do storytelling more than most people.

One of your nominated stories is the profile of David Fishman who’s the 12-year-old NYC restaurant critic. He had such a blitz of media attention, and he was on the Today show. What about your approach to the story with David made it unique?
We were alerted to that by a little item in the Times. And in fact it wasn’t my idea, it was Jim Nelson, who’s now the editor-in-chief of GQ. I of course immediately jumped on it; I thought it was a brilliant idea because it was fun. I enjoyed every moment of it. I mean, I didn’t know exactly what he was going to be like. Who knows what a 12-year-old kid’s going to be like? But if you read the lead of the story, I met him, we had a meal together and he said something so brilliant about one of the dishes we were eating, and it just hit me right away what this story was going to be. It was going to be me against him, mano-a-mano, and that’s what it was, seeing who’s the better critic, me or him? Let me tell you something about this kid, I don’t know if he’s a great critic, but he’s probably the greatest natural journalist I’ve ever run across. I never saw a kid who knew everything to do right about journalism in my life. I mean he was right, he was dead on.

Now you’re the dean of food journalism at the French Culinary Institute.
I love teaching. I mean I’m always amazed there are still people who have enough faith in journalism that they think they can make a living at it that will come to this class. It gives me hope.

What kind of advice are you going to give them when they ask about finding a job in food writing?
I just can’t give them advice on something like that. I basically say to them, get experience, take any job you can get, write, just make sure you write, make sure you work hard and hope that you have a spouse who’s making a lot of money to keep you going until you get your break, because there is no secrets of how to get work. No, there’s plenty of work. There’s no secrets on how to get paying work in journalism any more. It’s really not easy. Everybody can write, there’s more writing opportunities than there ever has been. There’s just not a lot of paying writing opportunities.

Social media is very popular now and it seems like everybody can be a “critic.” Do you think that citizen criticism has the potential to make full-time critics obsolete?
I think it’s of course disastrous. It’s like asking your neighbor whether or not you need penicillin for a cold.

You’ve been called the Indiana Jones of food writing.
The greatest compliment of my life.

Well Indiana had his fedora — what’s your signature?

My signature is I carry a purse, of course. You know I was the original metrosexual. I was carrying a handbag in the early ’70s because I could put notebooks in it. The reason you always carry the bag when you became a restaurant critic was to steal menus. But I’ve only been caught twice stealing a menu in my life, so that’s pretty good, isn’t it?

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Blake Gernstetter is mediabistro.com’s associate editor.

As a freelancer and investigative journalist, Alexander Zaitchik has held editorial roles at the Prague Pill, New York Press, and Russia’s infamous rabble-rousing rag, The eXile. He’s covered everything from mass murder sprees and radioactive contamination in central Russia, to the plight of small farming communities fighting Shell Oil in northwestern Ireland.

Yet, during talks with Wiley & Sons for possible book ideas, Zaitchik settled on one that was strangely foreign to him: an in-depth investigation on the rise of Fox News and conservative talk radio megastar Glenn Beck. Because Beck was just on his way to becoming a media sensation, Zatichik first gauged reader interest with an article for AlterNet.org, asking, “Is Glenn Beck the Orson Welles of Our Time?” Zaitchik recalled, “I wasn’t expecting much response, but the piece went gangbusters; it was the most popular article on the site for the week, had the most forwards, etc. I sent Wiley the numbers, and my editor, Eric Nelson, said, ‘Let’s do this.'” A three-part series for Salon followed, and now the forthcoming tome Common Nonsense: Glenn Beck and the Triumph of Ignorance (Wiley, May 2010) promises to be the first serious examination of the burgeoning media titan and his roots.

Zaitchik spoke with mediabistro.com about convincing Beck’s colleagues and friends to open up on the record, which controversial subject he’s tackling next, and how someone who has primarily covered foreign subjects suddenly found himself neck-deep in a project that — for good or ill — is entirely American.

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You sold this book in March 2009, just a couple of months after Beck’s launch on Fox News. How did you get the idea to write a book about him so early?

I was having lunch with an editor at Wiley & Sons, discussing another proposal that couldn’t have been more different, something about India. At some point, we started talking about American politics. This was around the time of Beck’s famous “We Surround Them” special on Fox, the one where he opened by crying and mumbling about how much he loved his country, and feared for it, et cetera. It was already a YouTube classic, and we laughed about how weird it all was. But that was it. I went home that day thinking I was headed back to India. That night I started looking into Beck and saw that there was this subculture developing — Beck viewing parties, Beck meet-ups, stuff like that, all across the country. And this was a full month before Rick Santelli got the Tea Party thing going. It was obvious that something was bubbling underneath Beck’s demo that was unique, more Palin than Hannity.

“If I held myself to Beck’s standards, I’d never work in journalism again.”

How did you get Beck’s former colleagues to open up, and how did you ensure that they wouldn’t have their own personal agendas?

People are going to have agendas even if your subject is, “Kittens: Just How Cute Are They?” You just have to trust your instincts and sometimes investigate your sources as well as your subject. If someone has an obvious axe to grind and a reputation as unreliable, you employ extreme caution. There are some stories I encountered about Beck’s past that would have made great copy, but I decided not to use [them]. Lucky for Beck, I take facts seriously. Beck had months, not to mention an entire research team, to get the basics of Van Jones’ biography correct, and failed miserably, if not intentionally. If I held myself to Beck’s standards, I’d never work in journalism again.

Who was the first to agree to go on the record?
The first thing I did was fly to Tampa. That’s where Beck launched his talk radio career in 1999. Pretty much everyone down there talked. The only interview I wanted but never got was with one of Beck’s old producers, because they’re still close friends. I cornered him in the Clear Channel parking lot and we chatted, but he never sat down with me. I know from his colleagues that he agrees with the basic thesis of the book — that Beck is a business-minded egomaniac, and everything flows from that — but he wouldn’t go on record with it. Most everyone else did. The trail only really started running dry once I got back to New York, where everyone knows everyone, and the only thing media pros fear more than hurting their career prospects is their own shadows.

“There are very few anonymous sources in the book. Considering what people get away with these days, the number is negligible. I imagine I sleep better than the guys who wrote Game Change.”

Who required the most convincing?

There was one guy who worked with Beck in Baltimore in the early 1990s. He was a former music programmer who knew Beck very, very well. He’s the only important anonymous source in the book, and was a tough nut to crack. Before I contacted him, the last time he said or wrote something about Beck, he was hit within a week by a nasty case of identity theft. He had no proof that Beck was behind it, but it spooked him. There were also some people that didn’t return my calls or emails until I published a series in Salon that made the rounds and won plaudits in the radio world. All of a sudden these people started writing back, sometimes after months. They were like, “Oh, I didn’t realize you were for real. Let’s talk.”

Do you have a methodology for getting sources to open up?

One of the nicest things about doing a book is being able to take your time getting to know sources. Before doing this, I don’t think I’d ever spent more than six weeks on a story. When you’re writing an article on short deadline, new sources are mostly just cagey strangers. You get what you can out of an interview or two. But when you have months to get to know people and develop trust, to fly out to their cities and establish a dialogue, you can sort of peel the onion one layer at a time, at whatever speed they’re comfortable with. This was my first experience with that, and I really enjoyed it.

How much of the detail in the book, especially some of the more salacious ones about Beck’s darker years, was based on recollections from past associates that went on the record, and how much was based on anonymous sources?

There are very few anonymous sources in the book. Considering what people get away with these days, the number is negligible. I imagine I sleep better than the guys who wrote Game Change. Maybe it shouldn’t, but it shocks me how slimy journalism is getting. Last week, John Avlon of The Daily Beast ripped off some of my research [on Beck and white nationalists] and tried to pass it off as his own. Shameless, brazen bullshit I haven’t done since my teenage ‘zine days. But this guy has a staff gig and benefits.

“It was tempting to try and chronicle every little controversy — and with Beck they never stop coming — at the expense of the big picture.”

Any advice for others contemplating investigating high-profile subjects, especially one as incendiary as Beck? Where should someone start?
On the biography side of things, start at an accessible point in the story. In Beck’s case, this meant getting on the first plane out of New York. On the analysis side of things, I think it’s important not to fixate on little events that may occur during the writing. Sometimes it was tempting to try and chronicle every little controversy — and with Beck they never stop coming — at the expense of the big picture and a few representative test cases that hold real explanatory power.

What do you say to those people who will say that you set out to write a “hate book,” and never had an open mind when dealing with Beck?

I was never interested in writing a slash-and-burn liberal screed, and didn’t set out to write one. My pitch, and my sustaining interest, was not, “Why I Hate Glenn Beck.” It was, “Who is Glenn Beck?” I think I answered that question. People can decide for themselves what they think of him. Nobody cares what I think of anybody.

Now that the book is done, “Who is Glenn Beck?”

I needed about 90,000 words to fully answer that question. Beck is both more complex and more loathsome than I ever expected. For the full portrait, buy the book, but I can say that I stand in slack-jawed awe of his inability to feel shame. There is just no way to overstate the guy’s regret-proof audacity. “Oceanic” is the only word that comes close.

Before this, you spent a lot of time bouncing around the world, writing about foreign subjects, yet it’s hard to imagine a topic more American than Glenn Beck.

No doubt. Listening to talk radio, watching Fox News, and going to the Tea Parties around the country — it threw me into the American marrow in way I hadn’t really experienced as an adult. Other than a few years working at New York Press [2003-2005] I’ve basically lived abroad since college. Until I started this project, I had seen maybe a few hours of Fox News, and had zilch exposure to talk radio. It was a hell of an education.

What’s next?
I’m working on another book for Wiley that’s sort of a logical extension of the Beck book. It looks at the development of conservative conspiracy culture over the last 20 years or so, and tries to untangle its roots in the American psyche. The working title is Bonkers: From Clinton’s Body Count to Obama’s Birth Certificate. I’m co-writing it with Jan Frel, my longtime editor at AlterNet.

So no India book?
It’s still on the boards. After another year of this sort of thing, I’m going to need to get out of the country for a while. There’s nothing like a stretch in India to refresh and get back to basics.

Zaitchik’s tips for covering high-profile subjects

1. Write fast. “Controversial subjects like Beck are volatile moving targets. You can’t really spend two or three years on a subject like this and release it as a current affairs title.”
2. Anticipate the curve. “Try and figure out who is early on the rise, and get there before the herd.”
3. Don’t have an agenda. “If sources sense that you are just out to get someone, or find grist for a hatchet-job, they won’t talk to you. Keep a genuinely open mind and people will pick up on it.”

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Daniel McCarthy is a freelance writer based in Boston, Mass., and the editor of the Boston edition of UrbanDaddy.com.

It’s been over 20 years since Kelly Cutrone moved to Manhattan from her small hometown in upstate New York. Since then, she’s been married twice, worked as an Atlantic Records recording artist, launched and then left her own boutique PR firm, only to return to the publicity world with her current firm, People’s Revolution.

Now, Kelly is enjoying perhaps the biggest spotlight on her career, as part of MTV’s hit reality show, The Hills. Whitney Port, one of the show’s stars, currently serves as a People’s Revolution intern. Yes, she actually does work. Kelly spoke to mediabistro.com about how that arrangement came about, why the Internet has changed the fashion industry, and how TV and media are, “sexualizing kids so quick.”

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Name: Kelly Cutrone
Position: Owner, People’s Revolution
Resume: Worked for PR maven Susan Blond; head of PR at Spin; started her own company
Birth date: November 13, 1965
Hometown: Camillus, N.Y.
Education: Syracuse University
Marital Status: Not married. Have been twice.
First section of the Sunday Times: Style
Favorite TV show: I don’t watch TV.
Guilty pleasure: Target
Last book you read: I’m reading a book right now called Conversations with God by Neil Donald Walsh.

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Where did you work before founding People’s Revolution?

My career started completely by accident. I moved to New York at the age of 21, I was just kind of, you know, a young girl who wanted to live in New York. I met Anthony Hayden Guest, the writer, who was the art critic at Vanity Fair at the time. One day he said to me, “Darling, you have to get a job!” And I said, “Well, I think I’ll be an MTV VJ or something.” This was like 1987. And he said, “You’re much too smart for that, you should be a publicist.” And I said, “Well, what is that?” And he said, “Oh, you know, you just talk all day and put people together.”

So I went and I had an interview with Susan Blond. My career started with Susan and I worked there for six to eight months, and then I left there and became the director of PR for Spin. From there I left and decided I would start my own company and contacted a former intern of mine who I had hired, a guy by the name of Jason Weinberg, who now owns Untitled, which is now probably the largest and most definitive management company in the country. He manages Hillary Swank, Naomi Watts, and Madonna.

So, we started this company called Cutrone and Weinberg, which was one of the first really young, boutique PR companies, and I did that up until the end of 1991 or 1992 and I just said, “I really cannot and do not want to do this anymore.” It was the worst job.

I took some time off, and it’s a big long story but I was actually signed to Atlantic Records. I got a record deal, and was living out in L.A., and I just really didn’t like doing it. And, I left. I said, “Fashion is the new rock and roll,” and started People’s Revolution in 1996 or 1997; I’m not sure what year.

What do you think are some of the biggest changes in the fashion industry over the last several years?

With the Internet… I think it’s like the Wild West now, and all of the templates of entertainment no longer are serving anyone. They’re all breaking down, whether it’s record labels or the old-school fashion systems.

Back in the day, the formula used to be, make really beautiful clothes, create an inspiring image, keep it very pure, don’t ever let anyone who’s not in the fashion world in to see it, stay super exclusive and then you’ll have this master license five to 10 years down the road, that will be worth a lot for licensing. Or, some great head-hunter from Paris will come and find you on your island and bring you to Europe and have you head up a fashion house, and they’ll also support your own independent line. What we’ve seen over the last five to seven years is that the French and Italian companies have done that, they’ve brought in different people, and then they bring these people in for three seasons and they go, “Oh well, you’re really great and all these people write about you, but you don’t know how to manage a team of 60-100 people, nor can you carry a $100 million company.”

So, you know, thanks a lot, we’ve used you for your press and public persona and now we’re going to throw you away. In my opinion, everything is upside down. You have people like Karl Lagerfeld doing deals with H&M, these people working with GAP, Go International with Target, Anna Wintour put Teen Vogue on The Hills. You have these incredible infusions and injections of what some people looking at it might call confusion. What I see is powerful pioneers seeking new distribution outlets and changing the laws and rules of how things work.

What about fashion PR? How has the new media landscape changed how you do business?

Well, I mean obviously, we’re on The Hills. I think the important thing is that PR is not something that can be controlled, especially not now. Before you used to have like five press agents, so we talk to 20 people, and with the Internet and the increased attention on fashion and the fact that with fashion shows, lets say there’s 400 or 500 people at a fashion show, maybe 25 to 125 of those people are valid and going to make a difference in the designer’s work, and God only knows the other 300, who might be younger market editors, who might have a blog under another name, who take all of this as a fashion expert and they start blogging. So, this ability of controlling the image is completely changed.

So, what you have to do, I mean for me — and the way we’re working — is we want our clients to command and control as many visual moments per season as they can. Whether those visual moments are their own retail stores, look books or fashion shows, you know, things they can control. Once you ship the clothes, they are the product of the stores and the store can put them in the window alongside whomever they want.

Once a celebrity wears a design, if they decide to go out and get drunk and drive home in your dress, it’s not necessarily a great thing. So, we’re into creating these visual moments and trying to help our clients create as many appendages as possible onto the body of their brands that can walk onto the pages of a particular magazine and make the proper statements for them.

What are some of the ways in which fashion PR differs from other industries?

I think when you’re a specialist in PR it’s like asking the question, “What’s the difference between an orthopedic surgeon and a radiologist?” I mean, there’s a lot of difference, you know. But, I think that branding is branding. The great thing about fashion is that it changes every six months, and you never get stuck for two years, or even eight months, like a movie campaign.

And of course, the clothes don’t talk back. The clothes aren’t going to call you and make you call their lawyer. They’re not going to wake you up in the middle of the night because they were busted leaving a club with a drag queen. The clothes are the clothes, and usually the designers are manageable.

So much is made of getting a celebrity to appear on camera with your client’s products. Is the celebrity endorsement overrated?

It depends on the celebrity… well no, it’s not overrated if it’s Uma Thurman who just won an Oscar in your dress and you didn’t have to pay her to wear it. That’s what I would call a good thing; it’s a great placement.

Do I think any brand should depend solely on celebrity? No, because it’s just going to look like an L.A. “celebu-tart” brand and it’s not going to have the legitimacy and the read with the fashion guard, the true fashion guard coming from New York and Europe. So, I mean, like most things, you want your pie to be evenly distributed, which is, you want to have great design, a cool, interesting or charismatic designer, and if they’re not that on their own, hopefully they’ll have some type of connection, whether it’s a rock star dad or a movie mogul boyfriend, or something that’s going to make it easier to push them because the magazines want to feature people that are going to appeal to their readers. If you’re a 65-year-old, 300-pound woman, they’re probably not going to want to feature you in their magazine.

Also, you want to have good production, you want to have the ability to finance the brand through the terms that it’s going to go and deliver them to retailers, and good press and good marketing. Those are all of the components that go into making a successful brand.

New York reported that Whitney Port “becomes bicoastal” while working for People’s Revolution, for a new spinoff show. What do you think about Whitney having to carry a show?

Well, I don’t know that she is carrying a show. We have no contracts or anything on that, so I cannot confirm that that is true. I can tell you that Whitney is bicoastal because we have a bicoastal agency and this is not her first time at the rodeo, coming to New York. Part of last season, she was in New York for a show we did, she was working here during Fashion Week and yes, she does come back and forth. If there is a pilot or a spinoff, we don’t have contracts on that yet, so we can’t confirm that.

How would you explain the popularity of The Hills?

I have a bizarre experience with The Hills. I’m a mom and I have a six-year-old, and when my daughter was a year and a half, my mom was trying to give her Disney princess stuff and I was really opposed to it, because I thought the messaging was very negative in the setup for little girls. It’s always some poor village girl, and something happens to her, and then poof, this guy shows up and they move to the castle and everything is great.

I just really didn’t want my daughter to get into that. I mean so much to the point that I was looking at a Waldorf or city and country type gender-free school because I just thought that it was negative imaging. By the time my daughter was two, she knew every Disney princess, every name, even though we didn’t have it in our house and I just totally succumbed to the fact that Disney had gotten my kid and there was nothing I could do, so I mind as well join them and celebrate that aspect of imagination and femininity with her.

And now she’s six and she’s really into Miley Cyrus, who I think originally the core concept was developed for a tween market, but what’s happening is TV and media are sexualizing kids so quick and everything’s moving so fast that a five-year-old is now into what a 12-year-old used to be into because of the way things like Disney edits and paces their show.

People like Zach and Cody, That’s So Raven, and then Miley, so it was like my daughter just turned six, she just finished kindergarten and she knows all about High School Musical, which is really a tween Grease, if you think about it.

Then what happens for these girls, their next installation is, guess what, The Hills. And they’re just old enough to start watching MTV, they’re hormonally in place, and they see these four young, beautiful girls who really in my mind are a continuation of a Disney princess, because they live in a world that most people will never live in. And, on top of that, you pick up the extra market of people who do live in that world who want to see themselves reflected back, like the fashion and entertainment people who kind of watch it like it’s something like they can’t really believe that they’re watching, but they are watching and they’re enthralled because they can’t believe they’re watching what they’re watching but they’re also narcissistic because they see their own world reflected back to them.

And then there’s a sub-group of people that are drawn in by their wives. And I know this because when I go out of town or something, people come up to me, like a 40-year-old guy who’s an engineer who is like, “Oh, are you on The Hills? I told my wife that was you, I knew that was you.” And I say, “Well why do you watch The Hills?” And he says, “I don’t know, I like to watch TV with my wife and she started having me watch it.”

Being from upstate New York and not being born in New York on Park Avenue, I think I have an interesting perspective because I come from one world and I live in another, and I think for most young people who watch that world, it would be amazing if you’re 21 and get invited to go the Crillion Ball in Paris. That’s my take on The Hills and that’s why I think it is so successful.

How did People’s Revolution being in the show come about?

[MTV] asked if they could come shoot our Jennifer Nicholson show at the end of season one, and I said OK. Then they asked if they could come and cover some of our shows in L.A., and I said sure. And I was the same as I was now. They told [the cast] that there would be this woman who would be like Kelly Cutrone.

Lauren was there, and finally, I said something to her. I said to Lauren, “You’re going to have to move a lot quicker if you want to work in the fashion business.” Then, they started using that in all the bumps to the show. And then they continued with the show, and I saw them one other time in L.A. I saw [Teen Vogue west coast editor] Lisa Love in L.A., and she said MTV wanted to talk about the possibility of working with me. There is a reason why Anna Wintour decided to put Teen Vogue into that show without seeing or knowing what it is. If it’s good enough for Anna Wintour, it’s good enough for me. I talked to Lisa about the pros and cons of doing it. We took the temperature of some of our clients.

The big thing to check would be, can we do this without losing business? So far, the great thing is, we haven’t lost any business from it. Clients that don’t want to be involved have been secluded and not involved. The ones that have, have benefited. About being on the show and in public, I don’t really care what people think about me. You know on the Web, that stuff like, “Kelly Cutrone’s a bitch, Devil Wears Prada,” none of that affects me at all.

What are you most looking forward to for this fall’s Fashion Week?

I never really look forward to it. I’m a production maniac. And I like all of our clients’ shows, we have some amazing things coming up. We’re opening some conceptual collective space, which is going to be a home away from home from designers. We have another project with DJ Spooky [in L.A.]. Here in New York I’ve got my whole lineup of eight to 10 shows.

What are the key things to remember to have a successful show at Fashion Week?

Eat well. Tell the truth. Surround yourself with the best professionals that your clients can buy, from stylists to hair and makeup to music to casting agents. Make sure you secure the right exclusive in the right place. A lot of publicists tell too many people the same story and the client gets nothing.

You claimed that you wouldn’t hire Lauren Conrad after working with her during the 2006 Los Angeles Fashion Week. Why not?

Well, I mean she didn’t move fast enough for me. There was a year and a half between that first meeting and when we next met. And there was a huge change in her. I’m an authentic person; I wouldn’t have someone in my office just because they’re on a show. Whitney had [Lauren] come over, and I was surprised by her. I’ve talked to her, and she’s done great. But she’s also worked a year at Teen Vogue.

I just got a letter from a former assistant who I fired, who asked for letter of recommendation. I asked him to come in and talk with me first. I couldn’t recommend him to a company without knowing more. When I saw him and there were a lot of changes, I was able to write that letter. Same with Lauren. The second time I had the opportunity to work with her, I chose to. We get a lot of kids here when they’re young; of course they’re going to go on to have successful careers.

Tell us your best “party-crashing” story?
My favorite one ever was someone called me and was asking for a ticket to an event. And they were trying to get me on the phone. They said, “I met you on the subway.” I said, “That’s impossible, because I don’t take the subway.” They could have said anything else.

You once said, “I’m really about communicating and about art. I couldn’t care less about Calvin Klein or Donna Karan.” What designers don’t necessarily have a “name” but are master communicators or artists?

I love Jeremy Scott, Bernard Willhelm, Alexandre Herchovitch, Martin Margiela, Yohji Yamamoto. I mean to me, a white shirt is a white shirt. They are incredibly conceptual and spend time and energy and not just into the season, but they’re into the cuts and fabrication. Pieces aren’t just made to show a woman’s body part or to draw a mate.

What accomplishment at People’s Revolution are you most proud of?
That I’ve never bounced a payroll.

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Joe Ciarallo is the editor of mediabistro.com’s PRNewser.

When Datwon Thomas first interned at Vibe in the mid-’90s, the term “hip-hop journalist” was more of a notion than an actual career goal. Yet, as the music (and a slew of magazines covering it) blew up commercially, the Brooklyn native found himself at the forefront of the culture he loved in various top-level editorial positions at Harris Publications. Then, as quickly as you can say AutoTune, everything changed. Rappers started battling over YouTube instead of tracks, and Thomas saw several of his beloved imprints struggle with dwindling audiences (XXL) or fold altogether (King and Scratch).

So rather than fight the impending Web tidal wave, Thomas chose to embrace it. He joined Russell Simmons’ online aggregator GlobalGrind.com in 2008 and hasn’t looked back. “You have to be willing to challenge yourself and not be afraid of what may or may not happen,” he says. “I was able to face my fear and move on to other opportunities because of my hunger from wanting to see an idea that I thought of come to life on a larger scale.”
Here, Thomas speaks about his new dual role, whether cult favorite King could have survived, and what happens when magazines act like rappers.

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Name: Datwon Thomas
Position: Editor-in-chief and chief operating officer of Global Grind, Inc.
Resume: Started as an intern with Vibe‘s online division in 1996. In 1997, began writing for XXL, eventually becoming the magazine’s associate music editor. After a tenure with Sean “Diddy” Combs’ Web site, he launched King, the industry’s first luxury lifestyle magazine geared toward African American men, with Harris Publications, Inc. in 2001. That success lead to the automobile-centric Rides in 2002, its spin-off Donk, Box and Bubble in 2004, and Hip-Hop Soul in 2005. He returned to XXL as editor-in-chief in 2008 before leaving for Global Grind, Inc. in March 2009.
Birthday: May 14
Hometown: Brooklyn, NY
Education: Attended Baruch College before leaving during his junior year to focus on writing full-time.
Marital status: Married with three daughters.
First section of the Sunday Times: Arts and Entertainment
Favorite TV show: Sanford and Son
Guilty pleasure: Nestle Crunch
Last book read: Honor Amongst Thieves by A.C. Clayton.
Twitter: @Daydog

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Was writing about hip-hop always something you wanted to do or did you originally set out on a more traditional news path?
I started as an intern at Vibe magazine in 1996. And this was for their Web site, so there was very little respect at that time. In fact, I started out at one of their e-zines. I don’t know if you can get any lower than that. But I did it for a year. My school, Baruch College, was right up the block, so I used to walk the 10 blocks every day and some mornings.

I always knew I wanted to do this because I am a hip-hop baby. I feed off of it. Some of the most inspirational moments in my life were sparked by hip-hop.

XXL and The Source had a long and open feud in the early 2000’s. Does covering hip-hop culture naturally lend itself to this type of competition?
It is a hip-hop culture thing because hip-hop is based on battles. Like, “I come from nothing, but even my nothing is hotter than your something.” Looking back on those days, it was fun to watch. But did it help the culture? I would have to say yes, because it pushed us to work harder and reach higher for our stories. If there is a “battle” it is because you deem the other person to be worthy competition. So yes, you’d say to yourself “I can’t wait until next month because I am going to smash them creatively.” Artistically, battling bred healthy competition.

“There are some people who take pleasure in watching their competitors’ demise, but you have to look at the big picture and how the closure of a Vibe or a King has a negative impact on the industry.”

You also deal with a lot of egos when covering celebrities and entertainment. Rappers especially get upset with coverage they think is negative. How has this impacted your work in the newsroom?
Hip-hop journalism has had to deal with big egos since it started. But I think it got a little more intense as the artists got bigger. Early on, you had Jay-Z, Eminem, Outkast, Dr. Dre — so many huge stars. They come with handlers and publicists who may expect you to bury stories for their clients. And there have been instances where rappers have approached journalists and assaulted them because of things that were written about them. So I think at a certain point, it has affected the business of reporting hip-hop. But I am sure this happens at other publications too, not just in hip-hop. In this business, there are lots of stories that get pulled because of certain relationships behind the scenes.

King had a real cult following and a strong brand. Do you think there’s anything that could’ve been done to save it from folding?
I wasn’t running King from day-to-day when it closed. At the time, I was editorial director after stepping down as editor-in-chief in 2006. It was always my vision that the magazine would have a life beyond me, as I wanted to graduate into other fields. I brought the magazine up to a point that helped me career-wise, but I always wanted it to be a vehicle for others to experience what I did.

King was a cultural bomb in itself. It’s been mentioned in countless videos and songs. It was the type of magazine that artists and models aspired to be in. It will always be my baby because that is the one I put together. I had the vision for it. I saw where it went and the niche market it would serve. It’s what people associate me with most.

Could it have been saved? I think there are some things that could have been done differently business-wise to extend the life of it.

“You have to curate your magazine and your print like it’s going to be consumed not for just that month but years down the line, like a coffee table book.”

You were once an intern at Vibe. What are your thoughts on its demise and now sudden resurgence?
I think it’s a very good thing. Now there are some people who take pleasure in watching their competitors’ demise, but you have to look at the big picture and how the closure of a Vibe or a King has a negative impact on the industry. These magazines employ a lot of writers, stylists, models, and editors. But when a magazine closes, it makes corporate America think that “your” market is dying or is not viable. You don’t want the industry to have the impression that your audience and target market matter have a voice. I’m happy that Vibe is back.

The economy hit music magazines especially hard over the past few years, but the genre has flourished online. What do you think the future is for music and entertainment journalism in print?
I think the future of music will be about big “events.” It’s not enough to just put Lil Wayne on the cover. Because if you are a fan of Lil Wayne, you can get all the information you need by jumping online. And you’d be more up-to-date than any magazine.

So you have to make events around a “Lil Wayne” that are unique to your brand and speak to what you are adding to the event. For example, you could do a review of every mixtape he’s ever done and have them reviewed by his fan and peers.

You have to curate your magazine and your print like it’s going to be consumed not for just that month but years down the line, like a coffee table book.

GlobalGrind.com is an aggregator of content, much of it user-generated. As editor-in-chief and COO, are you still able to have a creative influence?
As COO, I work with getting content deals so we can position the site as a stronghold on the business side. It also includes finding new revenue streams for the site. As the EIC, I oversee content for the site. The site itself is a monster because it’s aggregated. But I think what it does is makes you look at content and how you may package it differently. I have to decide what works as original content and what works as aggregated [content].

I still have a creative influence in that it’s my duty to find creative ways of packaging the content. Global Grind is known for its original celebrity bloggers like Alicia Keys and Russell Simmons and allowing celebrities to speak in their own voice. Speaking in first person, you learn things you may not glean from an interview. I have to package this accordingly to drive traffic to the site. Also, I know the importance of pictures and headlines, because the reader will go to the place with the better headline first. Also, it is about branding. Making sure the site is known to have the best voice, reputation and headlines.

For my day-to-day, I take my little girls to school, then I get on the train and I check my Blackberry. I do budgets, I look at the competition, and I look for new ideas. I may also be writing and preparing for a slew of meetings. There is so much to fit into an eight hour day that it always rolls over. I mention the family aspect because so much of my work spills over into my family life. I factor all of that into my life because it provides inspiration. My nine-year-old helps me out a lot, especially with some of the younger celebs in Hollywood. Someone sent me an email with the name of a Disney actor I didn’t recognize and my 9-year-old got on the Internet and went to the actor’s Web site for me.

What are your thoughts on the influx of hip-hop bloggers in particular? Do you think the Internet has hurt or helped the dissemination of news in the culture?
The thing about the Internet is that it is reckless. Whereas we had to do a large amount of leg work, nowadays, a blogger can just as easily grab someone else’s work and present it as their own. Back in the day, we had to invest a lot of time in digging up information. It was a different process. So sometimes I get upset that the process that I went through was long and tedious, but it gave me a different perspective on how to look up information. But then I just ask myself… is this just the “new” process?

Now it’s truly about whomever’s insight is the most accurate, the most colorful or the most intriguing. So now I am really matching my skills up against the world. And I think I am still coming to terms with that. Some of my colleagues have accepted that this is the new process. And of course I am in the game, but it is hard to accept that this is how people get information now. And for the youth market, this is the only way they are consuming information. We can talk about how it used to be all day, but the youth of today don’t care to experience it that way. But I truly feel the most innovative people are truly going to win in this race today. Because now it doesn’t matter how much money you have. If you have a really great insight and unique way of looking at things, your reporting will rise to the top.

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Terry Wynn II is a freelance writer and TV personality in New York. He blogs at TexasTigerOfNewYork.blogspot.com.