COM 117

According to Norie Quintos, “the key to good magazine writing is storytelling.” Quintos entered the world of magazine when she became an editor for Caribbean Travel & Life magazine. She had pride for the magazine – for it showed more than just pretty photos of tourists lounging in the sand – it covered the culture of the islands. But the Caribbean magazine eventually closed and she moved to US News and World Report in Miami, FL as a writer. But her time was short. Soon after her move to US News, she moved again to become the editor of National Geographic Traveler. Having had careers in editing and writing, Quintos says, “It’s good to stretch yourself, but it’s also good to find your passion.” Editing was her passion, and she found that at Nat Geo Traveler.

When asked, “What makes a great story?” Quintos replied that each publication has a different voice. For example, the voice of Nat Geo Traveler is curious, intelligent, and not luxury. So when hiring, Quintos said she looks for writers with that type of voice. She strips out most adjectives and exclamation points in order to make her writing more straightforward, so she looks for writers who do that as well. She thinks many adjectives is a sign of lazy writing.

But the digital revolution is changing the way magazines operate. The voice of magazines differ whether they are in print or web. This is because the web audience is usually international or younger. For example, the iPad layout differs from print. In the iPad version of Nat Geo Traveler, there are no “deep” articles, and the scroll moves horizontally rather than vertically. This is to minimize scrolling and maximize attention, because one page in print is equal to about two to three pages on the iPad.

As the digital revolution exponentially grows, National Geographic Traveler can surely keep up. In fact, being a travel magazine, they were on of the first to send digital journalists to travel around the world and write in order to reiterate the relevance of magazines. To Quintos, travel writing is about life. And a good travel story is about what you learn while living. I think Quintos sums up the importance of magazine travel writing quite well when she left us with the quote, “You want to be in the world, but not of it.”

I chose to go see this lecture because I love food of all types and I thought it would be interesting to learn about food journalism.  The speakers were various writers and editors from food blogs and magazines. They first started talking about a guy named Charlie Trotter and his legacy. He had just passed and he was a famous chef but I hadn’t heard of him. They said he teated his customers as his audience. Only one of the speakers had not heard of him and the ones who had revered him. I think its amazing that a chef could become famous for the greatness of his food. I had only ever heard of chef Ramsey from Hell’s Kitchen and I only know him for being on TV.

They talked about how the interest in cooking has grown because people like to show it off. I though this was interesting because I have noticed this myself. On Instagram it is a common thing to post photos of what you had for dinner. They also talked about how social media and TV has changed food. I didn’t think that TV had a real impact on the food industry until they talked about it. They said TV made food more exciting and accessible to people because you could make for yourself, what you saw on TV, with them. Also with the addition of Yelp, the role of food critics has changed. Anyone can find what they should eat at any restaurant on Yelp. Now critics tell readers about what the restaurant has to add to society.

As advice to those who want to become food writers, they said to focus on just being a good writer and don’t think only about how to write about food. Good food writing is good writing. Then they talked about how you have to assume nobody cares, because they don’t. You have to make people care by having an interesting story. I found many things interesting in this lecture but it did not make me want to write about food. It just made me hungry.

On Wednesday, November 6, three big names in the food journalism industry came to Syracuse University to share their experiences and give students advice about the field in which they specialize. These three speakers were Hugh Merwin, Helen Rosner, and Adam Sachs. Hugh Merwin is the associative editor at the prominent GrubStreet.com, a New York Magazine food and restaurant blog. An editor for Saveur digital magazine, Helen Merwin writes articles that serve as a source for recipes and restaurant reviews. Adam Sachs is the editorial director for tastingtable.com, a widely popular food and restaurant critiquing website. These three journalists talked about a variety of topics, including the rise of food journalism and the writing styles that are necessary to use in order to succeed in this particular field. Each speaker expressed their views on what they think is important about food journalism and what they think that students need to know about writing effective food-based articles.

The speakers made the subject of food and food journalism unique from other forms of journalism by regarding it as a detailed description of an entire sensory experience. They believe that a food journalist’s job is to create an entertaining story for the reader where the most boring part of the article is the food critique itself. When they are looking for the subject of a new article or story, they look for the most compelling story to draw the readers in. That way, they can convey their message and critique the meal or restaurant without making their article boring and lacking creativity. They all agreed that food is an art form. It is actually the most relatable art form for humans because it’s the only art form in which they can ingest. In regards to writing recipes, Adam Sachs described that in order to maintain a wide demographic, you must provide recipes to readers for a variety of events. He emphasized the importance of making sure to include recipes that can be prepared in 15 minutes for those who need to prepare a quality meal quickly and also recipes structured for people looking to host large dinner parties and entertain.

All three speakers talked fondly about the explosion of food journalism and the vast popularity of chefs in pop culture in this day and age. In recent years, food journalism has surpassed many other genres, including fashion, in readership. Helen Rosner believes that this is due to the attainability of food journalism. While magazines like “Vogue” feature clothing that is way too expensive for the average person, food blogs and magazines advertise products that the reader can interact with and reproduce with affordable components. In regards to the newfound popularity of chefs, they all agreed that this was due to the Food Network, social media, and the multiple reality shows on TV that center around famous restaurants or chefs. Through the increased knowledge of various chefs and their cuisine, Rosner and Merwin expressed hope that readers and consumers will expand their knowledge of nutrition and the value of quality balanced meals.

Overall, I did not find this presentation very interesting. Although they offered great advice and insight on the food world and how to succeed food journalism, my minimal interest in this particular field prevented me from fully appreciating it. I thought that the fact that food journalism was so vastly popular was intriguing because I had never heard of their publications. That being said, after their presentations I looked up their articles and appreciated Adam Sach’s techniques in making his editorials focus on the story of the experience itself while mentioning the food in the process. I decided to go to this presentation because it was a topic that I knew little about and was interested in exploring. Although I walked away from the lecture respecting their work and recognizing food journalism as a legitimate force in the industry, I did not form a desire to further explore food journalism as a career option.

As consumers of news in the United States, we put a lot of trust into the journalists that deliver that information, and we assume that quotations, and direct accounts that they give are true and unbiased. We also have the same trust of in the responsibility of being unbiased in journalists, while they cover political campaigns. Jeremy Peters, who is a political journalist for the New York Times helped us understand that we need to understand the background of political journalism, and even further more the background on how political campaigns try to control the media, in how they want a candidate to be seen in the public light.
Peters introduced us his impressive resume of covering political stories of countless politicians, including his covering of the 2012 Barack Obama Campaign. While finishing up his covering for the campaign, he was asked by the Obama admiration if they could have his notes, so they could look it over to see if his article was going to make the President be depicted as decent. In addition the campaign offered to give Peters other quotes instead of direct quotes that he already had. Amazed at this, he found out that this was something that was extremely common in the field of political journalism, and that many journalists turned a blind eye to it.
Outraged at the whole notion of campaigns being controlling of journalist, Peters wrote an article on how this was going on. While writing this campaign hegemony was not only in the Obama administration, but it had occurred in multiple different political campaigns, but it had gotten stricter over time. Through this research he also learned about how campaigns can try directly convince voters to vote for someone that they know are “on the fence” about certain parties. After creating this article, he received criticism from a lot of his colleagues that were comfortable with campaign management over journalists, but he also created reform in the New York Times, and other news sources that sated they would no longer accept accounts from political campaigns.
After hearing Peters, I was surprised and frightened that sources we trust, and accept to be unbiased are being controlled by politicians. What is frightening though is that our politicians are trying to control the media, and our perspective of politicians in our country. As future deliverers of media at the Newhouse School, we need to stand up to sources trying to distort the truth, and in doing so trying to control your product. In this era of the obsession of domination, more people such as Peters need to stand up to this hypocrisy of unbiased journalism.

Hedricks Chapel was the appropriate venue for Eric Liu to preach his gospel of patriotism. That evening, Liu held the rapt attention of each person sitting at the edge of their pews as he spoke more in the manner of an evangelist than a scholarly author about civic responsibility. For him, specifically defined values, the command of skills, and the understanding of systems represent the holy trinity of patriotism. Lui’s lecture, or rather sermon, gave meaning to each of these.

According to Liu, the values of patriotism involve putting your country before yourself, what he refers to as contribution before consumption or a “sharing of sacrifice.” In other words, we must all be willing to give up something before we expect anything in return. We are all in this together. It is “not all about you,” but rather your role in society and what you can do to make it better for yourself as well as everyone around you. As Liu put it, you must be a “pro-social” contributing member of the community. Lastly, Liu stated that society becomes a manifestation of your social behavior. When you chose to be selfish, discourteous or non-compassionate, society becomes selfish, discourteous, or non-compassionate as well. Our behavior is contagious. We are living in the product of our own actions.

The second part of the trinity that Liu addressed to the congregation was the command of skills. These “skills of citizenship” include how to speak, how to listen, how to deal with diversity, how to debate, how to organize people behind an idea, how to mobilize, how to navigate the power terrain, and how to engage people. The list continues, yet most citizens lack even one of these skills. As citizens it is our responsibility to learn these skills and, furthermore, to teach them to others.

Liu completed the trinity by explaining what it means to have an understanding of systems. Systems are integrated into every aspect of our lives: a familial system, a faith system, a market system, an ecosystem. The same applies to the operation our country. Everything is set in to motion by a system. And as citizens, we need to do more than just simply know that these systems exist, but we should understand how they work and the powers that they have.

At the end of his homily, Liu led everyone to recite an oath to declare their patriotism: “I pledge to be an active american, to show up for others, to govern myself, to help govern my community, recommit myself to my country’s creed, to cherish liberty as a responsibility, I pledge to serve and to push my country, when right to be set right when wrong to be set right, wherever my ancestor were born, I claim America and i pledge to be a citizen.” This had the odd effect of making one feel they were reciting the Lord’s prayer at the end of church service, which was consistent with the rest of Liu’s lecture. Liu was an incredibly compelling speaker, which reflected his previous work as a pervious speech writer. It was clear he could use the power of rhetoric in a unique and skillful way. He passionately preached the spirit of patriotism, his intention being to convert those who were not already true believers. But like many religious monologues, Lui’s message was more idealistic than realistic. That said, it was still far better than anyt other sermon I have heard.

Christine Tebcherany, Glamour magazine’s marketing manager, considers herself a “storyteller of the magazine.” An alumnus of Newhouse, Tebcherany visited Friday, October 25 to breakdown her role in marketing Glamour.

Tebcherany is currently facing a large challenge as the new Glamour publisher called to rebrand the entire magazine. This leaves Tebcherany a major role in marketing the large transition. She explained how she takes the marketing research statistics and must then create a story to convince potential advertisers why Glamour is the best magazine to run their ad. Tebcherany highlighted this when she described that Glamour’s rebrand is to sell Glamour as a voice of elegance, chic, and the modern woman. Tebcherany explained that it is imperative to provide clients with “exactly how powerful the brand really is,” meaning she must take the raw statistical data and present it in a way that corresponds to each individual client. She elaborated saying that her job is to “take a number and tell the story.” This story changes depending on the client: Tebcherany must decide which statistics – ranging from reader demographics to reader spending habits in particular industries – are most important to present to the client.

Tebcherany said that her favorite aspect of Glamour is that there are “so many diversified areas in the magazine: fashion, work, beauty, real life stories” that it provides a “broad spectrum” of editorial content and thus advertising content as well. She described her typical day as she receives ten to twelve requests per day and she must then provide presentations unique to each client. She says a majority of her day must be spent brainstorming on how to “best spin the story [to show] what [Glamour] can give the advertiser.”

I found it most interesting in Tebcherany’s breakdown of Glamour readers compared to other high-end fashion magazines. Through her statistics, Tebcherany was able to show how Glamour audiences are the clients that actually spend their money – they have the most Express Gold Card members, every second a Glamour reader is buying a new pair of shoes, Glamour reaches all 50 states, etc. This truly highlights exact information that advertisers want. I found Tebcherany’s breakdown of her job interesting in that she can take statistical data and turn it into a compelling story to attract advertisements – a crucial aspect of the magazine industry.