Episode 48: Will Welch (Editor: GQ, GQ Style, The Fader, more)

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In the past few weeks, Will Welch has taken a bit of flack for letting Beyoncé promote her new whiskey label on the cover of GQ’s October issue, with an interview that one X user described as “an intimate email exchange between GQ and several layers of Beyonce’s comms team.”

Whether that kind of thing rankles you or not—and yes, we asked him about it—in the five years since Welch took over, GQ seems to be doing as well or better than everybody else in the industry. Why? Ask around. He’s got a direct line to celebrities, who consider him a personal friend. He’s got real credibility with The Fashion People. And because of both of these things, advertisers love him.

Perhaps most importantly, his boss Anna Wintour loves him. 

The Atlanta-born Welch started his career at the alternative music and culture mag the Fader in the early aughts, and jumped to GQ in 2007. For a decade under EIC Jim Nelson, he operated as the magazine’s fashion-and-culture svengali, eventually becoming the creative director of the magazine and the editor of the brand’s fashion spinoff, GQ Style.

In 2019, Wintour tapped him for the big job: Editor-in-Chief of GQ—a title that in 2020 was recast in the current Condé Nast survival-mode as Global Editorial Director of GQ, overseeing 19 editions around the world.

After speaking with Welch only a few hours after the Beyonce cover dropped, we get what all the fuss is about. He is a great sport with good hair and just enough of a Southern accent who is confident-yet-never-cocky about his mission at GQ.

Let other people bemoan the “death of print.” Will Welch is having a blast at the Last Supper.

 

Episode 47: Dominique Browning (Editor: House & Garden, more)

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Dominique Browning jokes that after the interview for this episode, she might end up having PTSD. After more than 30 years writing and editing at some of the top magazines in the world, Browning has blocked a lot of it out.  

And after listening today, you’ll understand why.

At Esquire, where she worked early in her career, Browning says she cried nearly every day. There were men yelling and people quitting. Apartment keys being dropped off with mistresses. A flash, even, of a loaded gun in a desk drawer. 

At House & Garden, where she ended her magazine career in 2007 after 12 years as the editor-in-chief, the chaos was less Mad Men and more Devil Wears Prada. It was glitzy Manhattan lunches mixed with fierce competition and coworkers who complained that her wardrobe wasn’t “designer” enough. The day she took the job, she says she felt like she had walked into Grimm’s Fairy Tales. (Her friends had warned her that it was going to be a snake pit.) 

When the magazine unexpectedly folded on a Monday, she and her staff were told they had until Friday to clear out their offices. “Without warning,” she says, “our world collapsed.” 

In this episode, Browning talks with Lory Hough, editor of Harvard Ed. magazine, about those chaotic years, which, she admits, could also be fun. (Spoiler: The fun had nothing to do with the loaded gun.) You’ll also hear why in her editor’s columns she often wrote about her kids, why she still thinks of herself as an editor, and why a certain bit of advice from a golfer friend helped her during the stressful parts of her life when she worried too much about what others were thinking: Keep your eye on the ball and just swing through.

 

Episode 42: Willa Bennett (Editor: Highsnobiety, GQ, Seventeen, more)

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In early April, what’s left of the magazine industry gathered at Terminal 5 to see who would win this year’s National Magazine Awards—the ASMEs. Throughout the evening, the usual suspects stepped up to accept their Alexander Calder brass elephants—the ‘Ellies’—on behalf of their teams at The Atlantic, New York Mag, the New York Times Magazine. 

Then came the award for General Excellence, Service and Lifestyle—a category that covers every food, fashion, and fitness magazine in the business. And the Ellie went to… content juggernaut Highsnobiety—a sneaker blog turned cool kid media amalgam that encompasses a twice-annual $20-per-issue print magazine, plus a flood of social media, a website that is also an e-commerce platform, and a creative agency that does 360-degree marketing and storytelling for brands.

Before the crowd could start scratching their graying heads, a Billie Eilish lookalike in a gray Thom Brown skirt-and-pant suit took the dais. There were plenty of people in that room who had never given Highsnobiety much, if any, thought. 

But in that moment, this woman, Willa Bennett, Highsnobiety’s thirty-year-old editor-in-chief, had officially become a force to be reckoned with. Not only that, but HighSnobiety’s business model, which bends rules that had long been sacrosanct in magazine journalism, suddenly appeared to have won the seal of approval from the oldest of the old guard.  

The post at Highsnobiety was a major leap for Willa. Just two years ago, she was the social media manager at GQ. Our friends who worked with her there tell us they thought of her as “the industry’s little sister”—hungry, passionate, and looking to translate the magic of magazines to a new generation. 

They said that even though she’s disrupting the magazine as we once knew it, at heart Bennet is a “a magazine junkie who really venerates [revels in? rellishes?] the old ways.” 

And now the surprise win has put her in the spotlight of the establishment media, with the New York Times Styles running a portrait of Bennett in her signature suit and tie look on its cover. 

The win inspired a segment on the Slate Culture Gabfest in which the hosts pondered, “What Is a Magazine Now?” Over in Spreadlandia, we thought, why not turn that question directly to Willa Bennett herself? 

In the end, this conversation left us feeling more optimistic than usual about the future of media. It also made us feel old as shit. We hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

 

Episode 41: Janice Min (Editor: The Hollywood Reporter, Us Weekly, Ankler Media, more)

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A good editor can, theoretically, edit any magazine, regardless of genre. But in some cases, you need an outsider to make things right. To see the forest for the trees. 

To that end, Janice Min has planted entire forests—one tree at a time—on both coasts, where the Colorado-born editor considers herself an outsider.

I cared about almost none of this. I don’t care about celebrities or reality stars. It was my job to just think about how to interpret what they were saying and turn that passion into stories. I don’t think that the editors always have to be their audience, but I also think, as an editor I was able to be removed from it and glean like, “That pops. That’s the most important story.”

From Us Weekly, where her instincts led to a massive increase in readership that saved a floundering publication—and likely all of Wenner Media—to The Hollywood Reporter, which was in a death spiral but is now, once again, a widely-respected and well-read industry bible, Min has played a major role in creating what we now call the celebrity-industrial complex, as well as the rise of what became social media and the influencer economy. That’s all.

Now, as cofounder of Ankler Media, Min is once again rethinking publishing—and celebrity. The company is centered around its newsletter, The Ankler, which bills itself as “the newsletter Hollywood loves to hate—and hates to love” and is currently one of the top three business publications on Substack.

 

Episode 40: Scott Dadich (Designer & Editor: Wired, Texas Monthly, more)

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In his mid-20s, Scott Dadich told his editor at Texas Monthly, Evan Smith, that he wanted his job.

A move like that is a combination of arrogance, youth, and frankly, balls. But you should also know that Dadich is an engineer. And what do engineers do? Well, according to one definition in Merriam-Webster, they “skillfully or artfully arrange for an event or situation to occur.”

Of course, you probably know Dadich as an art director and editor, but beyond the titles, he’s the kind of guy who builds things, re-engineers them, re-configures them or, more importantly, thinks differently about them. 

To date, his life’s work has been building magazines—marrying words and pictures and combining his love of math and engineering with an eye towards new, unforeseen outcomes in a long career that includes stints at the aforementioned Texas Monthly, and also Wired, Condé Nast Digital—yes, we’ll talk iPads—Wired (again) and then on to his own agency, Godfrey Dadich Partners, where he is trying to engineer a new approach to advertising.

As a rare creative who has helmed a magazine as an editor-in-chief and art director, Dadich has ideas about how to better create everything, from where digital and print sit in the ecosystem, to the makeup of an actual magazine, and even how teams should fit on the masthead. He has put these ideas to practice on the page, on the web, and also on the streams, in his award-winning Netflix series about the creative process Abstract: The Art of Design, which premiered in 2017.

 

Episode 39: Linda Wells (Editor: Allure, Air Mail Look, more)

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Picture it: It’s 1991. You’re sitting at your desk at The New York Times, when you get a call from the office of Condé Nast’s Alexander Liberman. Alex wants to meet you for lunch at La Grenouille to discuss an opportunity: Si Newhouse has decided to launch the first-ever beauty magazine, and he thinks you’re just the woman to make it happen. You’re 31 years old. The canvas is blank. The budget is endless.

What’s your move, Linda Wells? 

For the women’s magazine editors of today, struggling to keep the lights on by juggling Instagram, TikTok, marketing events, digital content, and whatever remains of their print product, this is a tale so far-fetched it feels like the stuff of an early aughts rom-com. But millennial editors’ wildest ideas about the “Town Car Era” of magazine-making were just another day at the office for Linda Wells. 

Linda led Allure for 25 years, becoming a front-row fixture at Fashion Week—while also pioneering the cottage industry of backstage beauty coverage—and enlisting writers like Arthur Miller, Isabel Allende, Betty Friedan, and John Updike to write about … beauty. 

In 2018, she pivoted, restyling herself as a beauty entrepreneur, launching with Revlon a makeup range she called Flesh. Now she’s back in the land of editorial, having a bunch of fun at the helm of the beauty vertical of Graydon Carter’s Air Mail, commissioning articles on everything from psychedelics to orgasm coaches. 

We knew Linda Wells would be delightful, and yet she exceeded our expectations. We know you’ll love her too.

 

Episode 37: John Huey (Editor: Fortune, Time Inc., more)

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It might be difficult to remember, at least for our younger listeners, how vast the Time-Life empire was. At its height, during the John Huey dynasty of the late 1990s/early 2000s, the company published over 100 magazines.

Quite a rise from its humble beginning in 1922, when Henry Luce launched Time as the country’s first newsweekly. It was followed shortly by Fortune in 1930, Life in 1936, Sports Illustrated in 1954, and, finally, People in 1974. It was the largest and most prestigious magazine publisher in the world—and those five titles were the bedrock.

In 2006, Huey became the sixth editor-in-chief of Time Inc., overseeing more than 3,000 journalists. 

In an interview with New York magazine, Huey described Time Inc. as having a “public trust” and perhaps “an importance beyond profitability.” But not even a giant as powerful as Time Inc. was immune to the financial havoc brought about by the new digital age.

Huey retired in 2012, the last emperor of a vastly downsized and damaged empire. “Google sort of sucked all the honey out of our business,” he lamented then. In 2017, after Time was sold to its bitter rival Meredith Corporation, Huey tweeted “RIP, Time Inc. The 95-year run is over.”

Our George Gendron talked to Huey about Fortune’s battles with Forbes—and their pet names for each other, about giving Graydon Carter and Kurt Andersen at Spy a taste of their own medicine, about not hiring Tina Brown, and about what his mother really thought he should’ve done with his life.

 

Episode 35: Rochelle Udell (Designer & Editor: Self, Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue, more)

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Rochelle Udell is many things. 

She is all of these things: teacher, ad woman, vice president, founder, wife, creative director, mentor, chair woman, student, marketer, graduate, design director, editor-in-chief, mother, chief talent officer, executive vice president, collector, president, meditator, internet strategist, partner, art director, volunteer, deputy editorial director, artist, retiree, and baker's daughter. 

As Walt Whitman would say, “She contains multitudes.”

“As for the titles attached to my name,” Udell says, “I consider them important only in as much as they help the outside world understand who I am and what I do. My fear is that they often do more to confine rather than define one’s creative possibilities.”

The daughter of Polish and Ukrainian immigrants, Udell began her career as a teacher at Sheepshead Bay High School in Brooklyn, when a chance encounter with Milton Glaser launched her into the thick of New York magazine’s newsroom in the early 1970s where she and a group of women (including our Episode 25 guest, Gloria Steinem) created and launched the legendary Ms. magazine. 

After that, Udell, an Art Directors Club Hall of Famer, put her talents, her hyphens, and her multitudes to work at the world’s preeminent magazines: Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue, GQ, House & Garden, Esquire, Self, The New Yorker, and fashion brands, FIT, Chico’s, Revlon, and Calvin Klein.

And somewhere in the middle of all that, she was a pioneer of early-days digital media as the founder of Condé Nast Digital and its beloved, OG food blog, Epicurious.

Our editor-at-large, Anne Quito, spoke with Udell about all of it.

 

Episode 34: Mark Seliger (Photographer: Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, more)

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“I finally went up to Graydon and I said, ‘Hey, you know, I know you like me. I know you wanted me to be here, but I can also do covers.’”

• • •

That’s today’s guest, Mark Seliger. He’s the same Mark Seliger who, at the moment of this exchange with Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter, had already shot over 180 covers for Rolling Stone, where he was the chief photographer from 1992-2002.

Seliger had been heavily recruited by GQ and Vanity Fair to move to Condé Nast. But, as he learned, the days of being Fred Woodward’s go-to image maker were over. Once again, he was the new guy. And he saw an opportunity to reinvent himself.

Fortunately, reinvention is Seliger’s middle name. (Well, it’s really Alan, but you get what we mean). For example:

  • Seliger grew up in rural Texas, but decides to go big and moves to New York City to get into the magazine business. Reinvention #1.

  • He gets early work at business magazines like Manhattan, Inc. In short time his portraiture lands him a few plum assignments at Rolling Stone. Reinvention #2.

  • Unforgettable shoots and an immediate connection with Woodward lands him the title of chief photographer, and he picks right up where the legendary Annie Leibovitz leaves off. Reinvention #3.

  • His exposure at Rolling Stone leads Seliger (along with his pal Woodward) to directing music videos for A-listers like Lenny Kravitz and Courtney Love, and Gap commercials with LL Cool J and Missy Elliott. Reinvention #4.

  • When Covid hits, and publishing effectively shuts down, he pivots to documentary photography and produces an epic portfolio of an empty and still New York City that becomes the book, The City That Finally Sleeps. Reinvention #5.

  • And somewhere in the middle of all of this, Reinvention #6: Seliger starts writing songs in his free time, and then forms the band Rusty Truck. And at the moment Seliger is reminding Graydon Carter that he knows his way around a cover shoot, Rusty Truck releases its first album, Luck’s Changing Lanes, which is produced by Lenny Kravitz, Gillian Welch, Willie Nelson, Dave Rawlings, Sheryl Crow, T-Bone Burnett, and Bob Dylan.

That’s a lot. A whole lot. But for Seliger, it’s all of a piece. Photography, music, work, life. He says it’s all about following your curiosity. Observing. Not just looking but seeing. “For me,” he explains, “it’s all about storytelling—the storytelling in photography translated well into the storytelling of songwriting. And that exploration leads you to do something that you’d never done before.”

That’s the story of his life.

 

Episode 33: Tina Brown (Editor: Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, more)

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As George Bernard Shaw once said, “England and America are two countries separated by the same language.” Turns out it may be more than just the language.

Early in my career it became clear the British were coming. The first wave arrived when I was an editor at New York magazine: Jon Bradshaw, Anthony Hayden-Guest, Julian Allen, Nik Cohn—all colorful characters who brought with them, as author Kurt Andersen said in Episode 2, “an ability to kick people in the shins that was lacking in the United States.”

And kick they did. 

A decade later, the British trickle became a surge that appeared everywhere on the mastheads of premiere American magazines. There was Anna Wintour. And Liz Tilberis. And Harry Evans. Joanna Coles. Glenda Bailey. Andrew Sullivan. Anthea Disney. James Truman. And, of course, today’s guest, Tina Brown. 

And the invasion continues today, with the Brits taking over our newsrooms and boardrooms. Emma Tucker at The Wall Street Journal. Will Lewis at The Washington Post. Mark Thompson at CNN. Colin Myler at the New York Daily News.

But none of them made it bigger faster than Tina Brown. Si Newhouse never knew what hit him. Brown, having just turned 30, grabbed the wheel of Condé Nast’s flailing 1983 relaunch of Vanity Fair and proceeded to dominate the cultural conversation for the next decade. 

And then? Another massive turnaround at The New Yorker. The first multimedia partnership at Talk. Nailing digital early with The Daily Beast. Then Newsweek. And, more recently, the books, the events, and the podcast. 

So Tina, what exactly is it with you Brits that makes your work so extraordinary?
 

“Well, I think that the plurality of the British press means that there’s a lot more experimentation and less, sort of, stuffed-shirtery going on. The English press is far more eclectic in its attitude and its high/low aesthetic, essentially. There’s much less of a pompous attitude to journalism. They see it as a job. They don’t see it as a sacred calling. And I think there’s something to be said for that, you know? Because it’s a little bit more scrappy, I think, than it is here. And I think that’s served us well, actually.”
 


So it’s no surprise then to learn that there were early signs of future-Tina. Here we call it “good trouble.” Tina’s got another name for it. As the story goes, teenage-Tina, blessed with a “tremendous skepticism of authority,” somehow managed to get herself kicked out of not one, not two, but three—THREE!—boarding schools. Her offenses? Nothing serious. Just what the ASME Hall-of-Famer refers to as her “crimes of attitude.”

And you know, when you think about it, what is any great magazine but a crime of attitude?

—George Gendron

 

Episode 32: Neville Brody (Designer: The Face, Arena, Arena Homme +, more)

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“Once you have broken down the rules, literally anything is possible.’”

—
In the business of magazine design, few names resonate as profoundly as Neville Brody. And, to this day, he lives by those words. 

Renowned for his groundbreaking work and commitment to pushing design boundaries at magazines like The Face, Arena, Per Lui, and others, Brody is a true auteur in the world of design. We talked to him at the launch of his spectacular new monograph, The Graphic Language of Neville Brody 3.

Nurtured on 1970s British punk music, which rejected anything that appeared self-indulgent or overwrought, Brody found the perfect launch pad at The Face, the London-based music, fashion, and culture monthly, created by editor Nick Logan in 1980.

The Face inspired an array of fellow magazine rule-breakers, including the late Tibor Kalman, David Carson, and Fabien Baron, who calls Brody’s work “powerful, aggressive, and simple.”

Since then, Brody's journey in graphic design has been marked by a relentless, almost unforgiving pursuit of innovation. His magazine design challenged conventional norms and redefined visual storytelling. Brody’s design approach is characterized by a rejection of conventional grid systems and editorial hierarchies, and a willingness to break free from established design rules.

And he thinks magazines today are missing a giant opportunity:

“That’s the beauty of print, that you can’t achieve in the same way digitally. Digital is so commoditized. We’re not expressing content anymore. We’re just delivering it.


Neville Brody's legacy in magazine design lies in his fearless approach to challenging the status quo and his ability to capture the zeitgeist of his time. By pushing the boundaries of traditional graphic design, he not only influenced the look and feel of magazines but also inspired a generation of designers to embrace innovation, experimentation, and a spirit of creative rebellion. Brody's work continues to be celebrated for its enduring impact on the evolution of graphic design and its role in shaping the visual language of contemporary media.

 

Episode 31: Tyler Brûlé (Editor & Founderer: Monocle, Wallpaper*, Konfekt, more)

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“When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies? Perhaps to be too practical is madness. To surrender dreams, this may be madness. To seek treasure where there is only trash. Too much sanity may be madness. And maddest of all, to see life as it is, not as it should be!”

— Don Quixote de la Mancha

Monocle, the brainchild of the expat Canadian magazine maker, Tyler Brûlé, was born in early 2007, a relatively awful year for the magazine business, not to mention the entire world. In that year alone, more than 100 print magazines folded—or, as Wikipedia terms it, were “dis-established”—among them: Life (yet again), Premiere, Red Herring, House & Garden, Jane, Child, and Business 2.0. Months later, the global economy was hit by the Great Recession.

But Brûlé was coming out from under a rather lengthy non-compete agreement with Time Inc., after selling his previous startup, Wallpaper*, to the American media giant, and he was desperate to get back to the newsroom.

Given the times, and the stream of fading print publications, one could judge Brûlé’s resolve as “madness,” as Don Quixote cried in the opening clip. Digital was all the rage, the iPad was knocking on the door, and the radiation of the frenzied dotcom meltdown was still slowly killing legacy media.

“Madness”? Not if you know Tyler Brûlé. 

In his world, “life as it should be” is rich—a morning espresso in a bustling cafe with a crisp newspaper written and edited in the romance language of your choice, sorting out weekends skiing the Alps or lounging on the Med while riding the night train to Vienna.

And then there’s the print—not only the magazine itself, printed on “upwards of nine different paper stocks, crammed with extremely niche articles about carbon-neutral airlines in Costa Rica and sleek Afghan restaurants in Dubai,” but also special edition newspapers, coffee table books, and Monocle-approved travel guides. 

(Someone forgot to tell Brûlé and his brilliant team of collaborators that print is dead).

In a media culture traditionally obsessed with scale at any cost, Monocle’s modest 100,000 circulation belies a thriving multi-media juggernaut that confidently ignores the lure of social media. “We’re in a very fortunate position that we’re an independent publisher,” says Brûlé, “and we don’t have the commercial pressures of a big parent. And those commercial pressures can be two-fold: One is cost savings, but the other pressures are to go and chase after every new trend.”

In fact, Brûlé thinks of Monocle as a family business.

“We don’t set out to be pioneers, but also we’re a family company, and we can choose to do things quickly if we want to.”

That same culture has manufactured the pressure to establish one’s entrepreneurial cred. You’re not the editor, you’re the founding editor, the founding creative director, the founding director. But when asked about how he thinks of and refers to himself, Brûlé answers simply:

“If I think about ‘What do I do?’ I’m a journalist. I’m out to be a witness. I’m out to absorb, I’m out to interpret, and I’m out to communicate. 

A print-centric media phenomenon, created as a family business, led by a journalist. Surprising? Not for someone who’s been building a life—as it should be.

Here’s our editor-at-large George Gendron with Tyler Brûlé.

 

Episode 30: Stella Bugbee (Editor & Designer: NYTimes Style, The Cut, Domino, more)

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This summer, our first collaboration with The Spread—the Episode 21 interview with former Cosmopolitan Editor-in-Chief Joanna Coles—became our most-listened-to episode ever. Now Rachel Baker and Maggie Bullock are back, and this time they’re speaking with another game-changing woman in media: Stella Bugbee, the editor of The New York Times Style section.

For our new listeners, Rachel and Maggie are a pair of former Elle magazine editors and “work wives.” In 2021, like many of you, they found themselves wishing for a great women’s magazine—and watching the old-school women’s mags drop like icebergs from a glacier. They decided to be the change they wanted to see—and The Spread was born.

Now, more than two years into publishing their dream weekly on Substack, rounding up juicy gossip, big ideas, and deeply personal examinations of women’s lives—from The New York Times and The Atlantic to Vogue and Elle to NplusOne and The Drift—The Spread is a cult favorite of media mavens and the media-curious. 

Rachel & Maggie call Bugbee “a magazine-making unicorn”—we’re excited to be able to share their conversation with you.

 

Episode 27: Terry McDonell (Editor: Sports Illustrated, Esquire, Rolling Stone, Newsweek, more)

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Today’s guest, Terry McDonell, is the kind of editor you fear based on reputation, but would probably run through a wall for at 3am on deadline day.

As for that reputation, we’ve never worked with McDonell, but a simple Google search fills the screen with an undeviating set of impressions like these:

  • “he helped define American masculinity” 

  • “a version of manhood inspired by Hemingway”

  • “the manliest of literary men”


And indeed, his corps of collaborators includes a rogue’s gallery of literary tough guys: Jim Harrison, Edward Abbey, Tom McGuane, George Plimpton, and Hunter Thompson.

But missing from all that testosterone, until now, has been the true hero of McDonell’s life and career, and the subject of his beautifully-crafted new memoir: Irma: The Education of a Mother’s Son.

But read his other book, The Accidental Life, and you’ll discover a true editorial savant—an engaged partner to his coworkers, whose adventurousness knows no limits.

And apparently, neither does his resume. McDonell, an ASME Editor’s Hall of Famer, has topped the masthead at more magazines than anybody we know.

And those magazines have been nominated for 29 National Magazine Awards, winning in 2003, 2005 and 2010.

“Terry is one of the legends of our craft,” says ASME’s executive director Sid Holt. “He’s a supremely talented editor whose legacy to magazines will include not only unforgettable stories and images but also an inspiring vision of what magazines can be both in print and on digital platforms.”

 

Episode 25: Gloria Steinem (Author, Founder & Editor: Ms. Magazine, more)

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This episode is about a girl from East Toledo, Ohio.

A girl who taught herself to read by devouring comic books, horse stories, and Louisa May Alcott. A girl who didn’t set foot in a school until she was 14.

A young woman who went to India for two years to avoid getting married—to anyone. A young woman who was described by one Esquire editor as the only writer he knew who could make sex boring.

A woman who has never, ever, worked for a paycheck—who made up and launched her own idea for a column in New York magazine. (It kind of still exists.)

A woman who, while on assignment, was kicked out of the lobby of the Plaza Hotel because “she must have been a hooker.” Because all unescorted women who hung out in hotel lobbies in the 1960s must be sex workers, right?

A woman who describes herself as a “hope-aholic.”

This episode is about Gloria Steinem, the woman who created Ms. magazine—and started a revolution.

—

Our editor-at-large George Gendron caught up with Steinem on the occasion of the magazine’s 50th anniversary.

 

Episode 22: Jann Wenner (Founder & Editor: Rolling Stone, more)

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Imagine there’s no sixties.

In 1967, today’s guest was a college dropout whose Plan B was to start a rock ’n’ roll magazine. Plan A? “Kicking back, having a good time, delivering letters, and smoking dope all day” as a San Francisco postal worker. But thanks to a nudge from his mentor, Ralph Gleason, and a cash infusion from his soon-to-be-wife, Jane Schindelheim, Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner dove head first into Plan B. And the rest is magazine history.

Imagine there’s no Gonzo.

Rolling Stone was an instant hit. But it wasn’t until Wenner met the now legendary journalist, Hunter S. Thompson, and later published his “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” that Wenner found the editorial promised land. Thompson’s explosive, unhinged prose created space at Rolling Stone for a legion of iconic writers—Tom Wolfe, Lester Bangs, Joe Eszterhas, PJ O’Rourke, Matt Taibbi, and others—and allowed the magazine to expand its reach from music to something much bigger. “If it feels good, man, just do it.”

Imagine there’s no Annie.

In 1970, a 21-year-old newcomer was given her first paid assignment for Rolling Stone: a cover shoot with recent ex-Beatle John Lennon. In short time, Annie Leibovitz was named the magazine’s chief photographer. But it was a nude portrait of teen idol David Cassidy for a 1972 cover that signaled another watershed moment for Wenner. The allure of celebrity fueled the young editor’s personal obsession to join the cultural elite, and the cover of Rolling Stone became his ticket in. The combination of Thompson’s wild-eyed, uninhibited ramblings and Leibovitz’s intimate, provocative imagery was the magic that set Wenner free.

Imagine all the memories. It’s easy if you try.

Five decades on, Rolling Stone is a boomer autobiography—its pages filled with Random Notes and “All the News that Fits,” epic stories documenting massive successes, abject failures, and the lives and deaths of the culturally relevant, all accompanied by unforgettable photographs and game-changing design. The magazine has survived near-bankruptcies, editorial scandals, cross-country moves, and yes, even that Reagan-era “Perception vs Reality” ad campaign.

In the end, though, Wenner’s story is a somber one. Any time a parent outlives a child, there’s immeasurable sadness. Of course Rolling Stone lives on—“digital-first” as they say—with new owners. And with Wenner’s son Gus taking the reins in 2017. But it’s not the same Rolling Stone. How could it be?

As for the man himself, that legacy is “complicated.” But in this episode, you’ll get glimpses, as Rich Cohen describes in The Atlantic, of Wenner’s “infectious charm, his gleeful, let’s-hope-we-don’t-get-shot zeal for adventure, how contagious his enthusiasm was, and how important his loyalty could be.

“Wenner’s pen and language weren’t what defined him as an editor. It was his vision and energy that attracted the best talent and inspired such memorable work.”

 

Episode 18: David Granger (Editor: Esquire, more)

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We’re 18 episodes into this podcast, and, while several interesting themes have surfaced, one of the more unexpected threads is this: Nearly all magazine-inclined men dream of one day working at Esquire. Some women, too.

Turns out that’s also true for today’s guest, which is a good thing because that’s exactly what David Granger did.

“But all this time I’d been thinking about Esquire, longing for Esquire. It'd been my first magazine as a man, and I'd kept a very close eye on it.”

Unless you’re old enough to remember the days of Harold Hayes and George Lois, for all intents and purposes, David Granger IS Esquire. And in his nearly 20 years atop the masthead, the magazine won an astounding 17 ASME National Magazine Awards. It’s been a finalist 72 times. And, in 2020, Granger became a card-carrying member of the ASME Editors Hall of Fame.

When he arrived at Hearst, he took over a magazine that was running on the fumes of past glory. But he couldn’t completely ignore history. Here, he pays homage to his fellow Tennessean, who ran Esquire when Granger first discovered it in college.

“What Phillip Moffitt did was this magical thing that very few magazine editors actually succeed at, which is to show their readers how to make their lives better. And while he’s doing that, while he is providing tangible benefit, he also coaxes his readers to stay around for just amazing pieces of storytelling—or amazing photo displays or whatever it is—all the stuff that you do because it's ambitious and because it’s art.”

Upon taking over at Esquire, Granger’s instinct was to innovate—almost compulsively. Over the years, he’s introduced some of print’s most ambitious (and imitated) packaging conceits: What I’ve Learned, Funny Joke from a Beautiful Woman, The Genius Issue, What It Feels Like, and Drug of the Month, as well as radical innovations like an augmented reality issue, and the first print magazine with a digital cover.

Over and over, those who’ve worked with Granger stress his sense of loyalty. Ask any of his colleagues and you’ll hear a similar response: “David Granger is one of the finest editors America has ever produced. He also happens to be an exceptionally decent human being.”

At his star-studded going-away party after being let go by Hearst in 2016, Granger closed the evening with a toast that said it all: “This job made my life, as much as any job can make anybody’s life. It had almost nothing to do with me. It had everything to do with what you guys did under my watch. I’ve done exactly what I wanted to do—the only thing I’ve ever wanted to do—for the last 19 years. I’m the luckiest man in the world.”

We talked to Granger about retiring some of Esquire’s aging classics (Dubious Achievements, Sexiest Woman Alive), his surprising and life-changing Martha Stewart Moment, and what really went wrong with the magazine business.

 

Episode 17: Alex Hunting (Designer: Kinfolk, Mondial, Sabato, more)

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For the past ten or so years, indie magazines have been booming. As digital media platforms relentlessly chase clicks and smartphones paralyze our focus, a host of fresh print publications are taking a slower and more measured approach. 

Guided by the tenets of the “slow media” movement, this new breed of publishers focuses on correcting the pace of media creation and consumption in the digital age. They advocate for alternative ways of making and using media that are more intentional, longer lasting, better written and designed, more ethical—all delivered in a tactile, bespoke package.

In this episode, you’re going to encounter magazine brands you’ve never heard of: Avaunt, Flaneur, Mondial, Monocle, and Port—and, one of the great success stories of the indie boom, Kinfolk. Born in Portland, Oregon, in the early 20-teens with the tagline, “A Guide for Small Gatherings,” the magazine was often referred to, dismissively, as “Martha Stewart for millennials.”

But, in recent years, Kinfolk, like its millennial stans, has grown up. The mag moved its offices to Copenhagen. They created a clothing brand, licensed local editions in South Korea, China, Japan, and Russia, published a series of coffee table books, and, in the ultimate act of adulting, launched a magazine for “people with kids.”

But one of the best moves they made was hiring today’s guest, the incredibly talented British designer, Alex Hunting. 

Intentional or not, Hunting is a practitioner of slow design. His instinct for space allocation and pacing eliminates those outdated, overwhelming TL;DR sections. His stunning magazine pages are subtle, spare, and expertly crafted. Perfect for indie magazines, which is good, because that’s pretty much all he does.

We’ll talk to Alex about why, at age 35, he’s so bullish on print, why his university experience didn’t go as planned, and how a pair of mentors literally changed his life.

And, if all of this bores you, well, there’s plenty of talk about houseplants.

 

Episode 16: Dan Okrent (Editor & Author: Life, Time, New England Monthly, more)

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Back in April, 1966, Time magazine famously asked America the big question: “Is God Dead?” 

Thirty years later, as Time Inc.’s Corporate Editor at Large, Dan Okrent posed an equally existential question: Is print dead? His answer: An unequivocal “yes.”

“Finished. Over. Full stop,” he declared in a 1999 lecture at the Columbia School of Journalism.

Despite that, it’d be unfair to call Okrent the Grim Reaper. (Just don’t ask what he said about Detroit in the early 2000s). A lifelong realist, Okrent simply viewed digital delivery as the most sustainable path forward for magazines, thanks to the skyrocketing cost of paper, printing, and postage. Publishers, however, ignored Okrent’s prophecy, and continued to feast on their circulation revenues while treating their digital efforts purely as supplemental to print. 

“How do you say goodbye to that cash? You don’t. And then you end up seeing what happened in the slaughter of the next 10, 15 years. And this was before the smartphone!”

Okrent made his name as the cofounder of the highly-acclaimed regional, New England Monthly, in 1984—his first job as a magazine editor. He went on to work at Time Inc., Life magazine, and The New York Times, where he served as ombudsman in the wake of the Jayson Blair plagiarism scandal. 

He’s the author of numerous books, including Great Fortune, a 2003 history of Rockefeller Center that was shortlisted for a Pulitzer Prize. 

In this episode, Okrent talks about his personal board of advisors and the roles they’ve played in his life, about his career highs and low—including a “humiliating” bake-off he was part of when Sports Illustrated was looking for a new editor, about how he introduced the world to fantasy sports, but didn’t make a dime, and how he later pivoted to fame and fortune “off” Broadway.

 

Episode 15: Will Hopkins (Designer: Then, Look, American Photographer, more)

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If Marianna, Arkansas looks like the kind of place that Walker Evans would’ve photographed, that’s because it is. And it was in that cotton belt town in 1936 that William Paschal Hopkins came to be. 

Born to Charles, a cotton merchant, and Martha, a housewife, young Will Hopkins was on a path to follow his father into the cotton business. But thanks to the intervention of a distant aunt, a fashion illustrator in New York City, Hopkins’ parents were persuaded into shipping their creatively-inclined boy off to the celebrated Cranbrook Academy of Art in Detroit.

Hopkins became the “Arkansas Traveler.” After school, he took a job at Chess Records in Chicago, designing for the likes of Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon, and Bo Diddley. But soon the road was calling again.

“One Sunday afternoon, I’m walking down the street in Chicago. I said to this friend of mine, ‘You know, I’m gonna go to Germany.’”

Through a friend, Hopkins had discovered Willy Fleckhaus, one of the most innovative, creative, and influential graphic designers in postwar Germany. He knew he had to go.

Through his revolutionary work at the magazine Twen, Fleckhaus taught Hopkins everything about the business, including the “12-Part Grid,” his layout innovation that transformed the way magazines were designed.

After three years in Munich, Hopkins moved to New York to take the helm at Look magazine. Look enjoyed a spirited rivalry with the more conservative Life magazine, and published hard-hitting stories on civil rights, racism, gay marriage, and the environment. It featured the more cutting-edge design of the two, which Hopkins credits to his implementation of Fleckhaus’s grid system.

After Look closed in 1971 (followed by Life in 1972), Hopkins would go on to open his own studio where he continues to run a thriving design business, Hopkins/Baumann, in Minneapolis.

After a non-stop, 65-year career in magazine publishing, Hopkins’ memory is rich, but not quite what it used to be. But thanks to his partner in work and in life, Mary K Baumann, who helped to fill in the gaps, we learned why Hopkins seemed to attract magazines with “American” in the title (American Photographer, American Health, American Craft), how to drive a Volkswagen from Chicago to Germany, and about the good old days when art directors got wined and dined by French publishers.