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

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

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

@valerieberrios

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

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

@valerieberrios

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So then you find her approachable?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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

Authentic stories + social media = social activism, says Toan

@valerieberrios

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

@valerieberrios

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

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

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

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

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

Why did you leave TV reporting to pursue social activism?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

When did Go Inspire Go officially launch?

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

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

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

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

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

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

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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

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

@valerieberrios

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

@valerieberrios

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How else does Onion Labs incorporate social media?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Topics:

Advice From the Pros, Be Inspired

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

Noe talks challenges and opportunities in digital news

@valerieberrios

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

@valerieberrios

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Are there specific mobile initiatives you’ve launched?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How else do you leverage social media?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What would you say is best part of your job?

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

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

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

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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

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

@valerieberrios

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

@valerieberrios

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So how would you describe the format of the show?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tell me about the topics you cover on your show.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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