Episode 68: Graydon Carter (Editor: Air Mail Weekly, Vanity Fair, Spy, more)

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I’m a writer and the former deputy editor of Vanity Fair. Now, if you know anything about me, which statistically you don’t, unless—shameless plug—you read my memoir, Dilettante, about my time at Vanity Fair and the golden age of the magazine business. Which, statistically, you didn’t.

The only reason I have a career at all is because of today’s guest on Print Is Dead (Long Live Print). He hired me in the mid-nineties to be his assistant. Or as he likes to say, “rescued me off the scrap heap” and then, like gum on the bottom of his shoe, he could never seem to get rid of me.

I’m talking of course about Graydon Carter, former editor of Vanity Fair, Spy, The New York Observer, and now co-editor and co-founder of Air Mail.

He’s here to talk about his memoir When the Going was Good—a title that, with signature understatement, suggests things were once better than they are now, which feels correct. But his book isn’t just about magazines. It’s about a time when media was glamorous and powerful and vital. When New York was still New York. When the world he had a hand in shaping still existed.

It’s not nostalgia, it’s a public service, because Graydon didn’t just edit and create magazines. He built worlds. He predicted the cultural weather. He made journalism feel essential, and more importantly, cool. 

I was lucky enough to work for him at Vanity Fair for almost 25 years, back when magazines mattered, when people still returned phone calls, and parties had seating charts instead of hashtags, when the media wasn’t just people making videos about sandwiches, and when style wasn’t a “brand CoLab,” and when you could still smoke indoors without a visit from HR.

You know what? Hold on one second. “Hey! You kids get off my lawn!”

Sorry. Graydon began as my boss, but quickly became a mentor, then a friend, and it’s a friendship that continues to this day. So enjoy this conversation with Graydon Carter as he looks back on the chaos, the glamour, and the thrill of a better time. Back when, yes, the going was very, very good.

—Dana Brown

Episode 67: Debra Bishop (Designer: The NY Times Kids, More, Martha Stewart, more)

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When I decided to launch this podcast back in 2019, it didn’t take me long to realize that I didn’t want to do it alone. The first person I called? Today’s guest, Debra Bishop.

I’ve known Deb a little bit for a long time, but well enough to know her insight, humor, and world view would elevate every conversation we’d have. But also, and more importantly, she is without question one of the most consequential editorial designers working today. 

Deb has helped define the visual and structural DNA of some of the most iconic media brands of the last few decades, from Martha Stewart’s Blueprint, to More Magazine, and now to The New York Times for Kids.

What sets Deb apart is not just her eye, but her mind. She’s a master of creating editorial systems—cohesive, flexible frameworks that hold entire magazines together, giving them both structure and soul. Her designs guide readers effortlessly, creating rhythm, clarity, and a sense of trust.

Deb never overdesigns or distracts—she amplifies. Her layouts are confident, elegant, quietly powerful, and often these days, lots of fun. And as a leader and mentor, she’s shaped not just magazines but careers. She’s helped raise the standard for what editorial design can be, and what a creative partnership should look like.

Deb makes everything better: the work, the process, the people around her. Her influence is everywhere—including on this podcast—and I feel incredibly lucky to call her a friend and colleague.

—Patrick Mitchell

Episode 66: Laurie Kratochvil (Former Photo Editor: Rolling Stone, InStyle, more)

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Close your eyes and picture a classic Rolling Stone cover. Dozens probably come to mind—portraits of music legends, movie stars, political icons, cultural rebels. Bruce. Bono. Madonna. 

These images are etched into our cultural memory as more than mere photographs. They’re statements.

But when we remember the cover, and maybe even the photographer, how often do we remember the person who made it all happen? The one who dreamed up the concept, found the right photographer, navigated the logistics, managed the personalities, and ultimately brought that unforgettable image to life?

It’s the photo editor. But who thinks about the photo editor?

Photo editors are essential—especially at a magazine like Rolling Stone—for decades its covers defined our visual culture. Behind every iconic cover is a photo director making hundreds of invisible decisions under pressure and facing tight budgets, unpredictable talent, and shifting editorial winds. They’re the ones keeping shoots on track when the talent shows up two hours late. They’re the ones coaxing photographers into greatness—the person behind the people behind the camera. 

Photo editors are expected to be tastemakers, producers, diplomats, caterers, and art directors all at once. Although their work is everywhere, their names are not. They’re under-thanked. Underseen. Too often unknown. This is the paradox of their work: When a shoot goes well, it looks effortless. When it doesn’t, they take the bullet.

Laurie Kratochvil, Rolling Stone’s visionary director of photography from 1982 to 1994, knows this all too well.

Episode 65: Philip Burke (Illustrator: Rolling Stone, more)

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Philip Burke’s portraits don’t just look like the people he paints—they actually vibrate. Just look at them. With wild color, skewed proportions, and emotional clarity, his illustrations have lit up the pages of Rolling Stone, The New Yorker, Time, and Vanity Fair, capturing cultural icons in a way that feels both chaotic and essential.

But behind that explosive style is a steady, spiritual core.

Burke begins each day by chanting. It sounds like this: “Nam Myōhō Renge Kyō. Nam Myōhō Renge Kyō. Nam Myōhō Renge Kyō.” It means “devotion to the mystic law of cause and effect through sound,” he says. The chant grounds Burke and opens a space where true connection—on the canvas and in life—can happen.

This daily practice is more than a ritual—it’s a source of creative clarity. 

Burke’s rise was rapid and raw. Emerging from Buffalo, New York, he made his name in the punk-charged art scene of the 1980s with a fearless, high-voltage style. But it was through his spiritual journey that the work began to transform—less about distortion for shock, and more about essence, empathy, and insight. Less funhouse mirror, more human.

Our Anne Quito spoke to Burke about how Buddhism reshaped his approach to portraiture, what it means to truly see a subject, and why staying present—both on the page and in life—is his greatest creative discipline.

Episode 64: Jeff Jarvis (Founding Editor: Entertainment Weekly & mass-media critic)

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I first met Françoise Mouly at The New Yorker’s old Times Square offices. This was way back when artists used to deliver illustrations in person. I had stopped by to turn in a spot drawing and was introduced to Françoise, their newly-minted cover art editor.

I should have been intimidated, but I was fresh off the boat from Canada and deeply ensconced in my own bubble—hockey, baseball, Leonard Cohen—and so not yet aware of her groundbreaking work at Raw magazine.

Much time has passed since that fortuitous day and I’ve thankfully caught up with her ouevre—gonna get as many French words into this as I can—through back issues of Raw and TOON Books. But mostly with The New Yorker, where we have worked together for over 30 years and I’ve been afforded a front-row seat to witness her mode du travail, her nonpareil mélange of visual storytelling skills.

Speaking just from my own experience, I can’t tell you how many times at the end of a harsh deadline I’ve handed in a desperate, incoherent mess of watercolor and ink, only to see the published product a day later magically made whole, readable, and aesthetically pleasing.

Because Françoise prefers her artists to get the credit, I assume she won’t want me mentioning the many times she rescued my images from floundering. I can remember apologetically submitting caricatures with poor likenesses, which she somehow managed to fix with a little manipulation numérique—a hairline move forward here, a nose sharpened there. Or ideas that mostly worked turned on their head—with the artist’s permission, of course—to suddenly drive the point all the way home.

For Françoise, “the point” is always the point. Beautiful pictures are fine, but what does the image say? Françoise maintains a wide circle of devoted contributing artists—from renowned gallery painters to scribbling cartoonists, and all gradations between—from whom she regularly coaxes their best work. I thank my étoiles chanceuses to be part of that group.

And now, an interview with Françoise. Apparently.

—Barry Blitt

Episode 63: Françoise Mouly (Art Editor: The New Yorker)

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I first met Françoise Mouly at The New Yorker’s old Times Square offices. This was way back when artists used to deliver illustrations in person. I had stopped by to turn in a spot drawing and was introduced to Françoise, their newly-minted cover art editor.

I should have been intimidated, but I was fresh off the boat from Canada and deeply ensconced in my own bubble—hockey, baseball, Leonard Cohen—and so not yet aware of her groundbreaking work at Raw magazine.

Much time has passed since that fortuitous day and I’ve thankfully caught up with her ouevre—gonna get as many French words into this as I can—through back issues of Raw and TOON Books. But mostly with The New Yorker, where we have worked together for over 30 years and I’ve been afforded a front-row seat to witness her mode du travail, her nonpareil mélange of visual storytelling skills.

Speaking just from my own experience, I can’t tell you how many times at the end of a harsh deadline I’ve handed in a desperate, incoherent mess of watercolor and ink, only to see the published product a day later magically made whole, readable, and aesthetically pleasing.

Because Françoise prefers her artists to get the credit, I assume she won’t want me mentioning the many times she rescued my images from floundering. I can remember apologetically submitting caricatures with poor likenesses, which she somehow managed to fix with a little manipulation numérique—a hairline move forward here, a nose sharpened there. Or ideas that mostly worked turned on their head—with the artist’s permission, of course—to suddenly drive the point all the way home.

For Françoise, “the point” is always the point. Beautiful pictures are fine, but what does the image say? Françoise maintains a wide circle of devoted contributing artists—from renowned gallery painters to scribbling cartoonists, and all gradations between—from whom she regularly coaxes their best work. I thank my étoiles chanceuses to be part of that group.

And now, an interview with Françoise. Apparently.

—Barry Blitt

Episode 62: David Granger (Editor: Esquire, GQ, more)

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While several interesting themes have surfaced in this podcast, 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 61: Simon Esterson (Designer & Co-owner: Eye)

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Simon Esterson is one of the most influential figures in British magazine design shaping the field for decades with his distinctive approach to editorial work.

Unlike many designers who built their careers within major publishing houses, Esterson chose a different path, gravitating toward independent publishing where his influence could be greater and his contributions more impactful. This decision allowed him to play a key role in fostering a rich culture of design-led publications.

His early work at Blueprint, the legendary British design and architecture magazine, set the stage for a career that would lead him to The Guardian, The Sunday Times of London and the Italian architecture magazine, Domus, before establishing his own London based studio, Esterson Associates.

Today, Esterson’s most visible project is Eye, the internationally-renowned journal of graphic design. As its art director and co-owner, he has been instrumental in maintaining its reputation as one of the most essential platforms for design professionals.

Thanks to his nonstop editorial work, Esterson is widely considered to be a mentor and role model for generations of British designers proving that great editorial design does not require vast resources, but rather a clear vision and an understanding of how design can elevate content.

That’s what great designers do.

Episode 60: Bob Guccione Jr. (Founder & Editor: SPIN)

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Nearly 40 years after its launch, Spin magazine has returned to print—and at the helm, once again, is its founding editor and today’s guest, Bob Guccione Jr. 

Launched in 1985 as a scrappy, rebellious alternative to Rolling Stone, Spin became a defining voice in music journalism, championing emerging artists and underground movements that mainstream media often overlooked. 

Now, as it relaunches its print edition, Spin will attempt to find its place in a media landscape that looks completely different. But Spin’s origin story—and Guccione Jr.’s career—has been shaped by a complicated legacy. His father, Bob Guccione Sr., was the founder of Penthouse magazine, a publishing mogul who built an empire on provocation and controversy. 

Launched in 1965 as a scrappy, rebellious alternative to Playboy, Penthouse was more than just an explicit adult magazine. It was a cultural lightning rod, sparking debates on censorship, free expression, and morality. 

Though Penthouse funded Spin’s launch, the father/son dynamic was soon fraught with conflict over Spin’s editorial direction combined with Penthouse’s declining appeal. That tension led to a deep rift—the two were estranged for years. But Spin survived, thriving under Guccione Jr.’s leadership as it defined a new era of music journalism.

We talked to Guccione upon his return to the magazine he built, and offers a spin-free take on dad, the launch, and the comeback.

Episode 59: Paula Scher (Designer: Pentagram)

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Paula Scher isn’t really a “magazine person.”

But if you ever needed evidence of the value of what we like to call “magazine thinking,” look no further than Pentagram, the world’s most influential design firm. The studio boasts a roster of partners whose work is rooted in magazine design: Colin Forbes, David Hillman, Kit Hinrichs, Luke Hayman, DJ Stout, Abbott Miller, Matt Willey, and, yes, today’s guest.

Paula has been a Pentagram partner since 1991. She’s an Art Director’s Club Hall of Famer—and AIGA Medalist. She has shaped the visual landscape for iconic brands—Coca-Cola, Citibank, Tiffany, and Shake Shack—always with her instinctive understanding of how typography, design, and storytelling come together.

In other words, she plays the same game we do.

In 1993, Paula collaborated with Janet Froelich on a redesign of The New York Times Magazine and built a platform for pioneering editorial innovation that continues to this day. In 1995, she helped me decode Fast Company’s editorial mission, in her own distinctively reductive way: “It’s about the ideas, not the people,” she said. It was a game-changer.

But Paula isn’t just a design legend—she’s also a complete badass.

Starting out at a time when the industry was still predominantly male, Paula carved out space for herself by fighting for it. Her work at CBS and Atlantic Records redefined album cover design. Later, her rebranding for cultural institutions like The Public Theater and the Museum of Modern Art helped cement the importance of an unforgettable identity system for any organization.

And, as a longtime educator at New York’s School of Visual Arts, Paula has molded generations of designers who have gone on to shape the industry in their own ways—including our very own Debra Bishop.

We spoke to Paula upon the launch of her new, 500-plus page monograph, Paula Scher: Works.

Episode 58: Jake Silverstein (Editor: The New York Times Magazine, more)

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Clang! Clink! Bang! Hear that? It’s the sound of all the hardware that Jake Silverstein’s New York Times Magazine has racked up in his almost eleven years at its helm: Pulitzers and ASMEs are heavy, people!

When we were preparing to speak to Jake, we reached out to a handful of editors who have loyally worked with him for years to find out what makes him tick. They describe an incredible and notably drama-free editor who fosters an amazing vibe and a lover of both literary essay and enterprise reporting who holds both an MA and an MFA. As one New York Times Mag story editor put it, Jake’s superpower is his “vigorous and institutionally-shrewd support of skilled reporters with strong voices pursuing projects that were just a little beyond the paper’s ordinary comfort zone.” 

Here’s a theory we set out to test in this interview—one that we’ve floated in our newsletter, The Spread, for years now: Is The New York Times Magazine the best women’s magazine out there? 

Yes, we’re talking about the stories they produce under Jake, like Susan Dominus’s ASME-winning, game-changing story about menopause and hormone replacement therapy, and Linda Villarosa’s feature shining a light on the Black maternal health crisis. 

But we’re also talking about the woman-loaded top of the Times Mag masthead, on which Gail Bichler, Jessica Lustig, Sasha Weiss, Ilena Silverman, and Adrienne Greene reign supreme—and seriously outnumber their male counterparts. 

And we could spend all day name checking favorite writers, like Dominus and Villarosa, but also Emily Bazelon, Danyel Smith, Taffy Brodesser-Akner, Irina Aleksander, Jordan Kisner, Azmat Khan, Pam Colloff, Nikole Hannah-Jones, J Wortham, Wesley Morris. We could go on and on—you get the idea! 

So, did Jake agree with our women’s mag theory? And what is it like to have the deep resources it takes to make these kinds of stories these days? You’ll have to listen to find out.

Episode 57: Gael Towey (Designer: Martha Stewart Living, MSLO, House & Garden, more)

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In 1995, New York magazine declared Martha Stewart the “Definitive American Woman of Our Time.” And, as the saying goes, sort of, behind every Definitive American Woman of Our Time is another Definitive American Woman of Our Time. And that’s today’s guest, designer Gael Towey.

But let’s back up. It’s 1982, and Martha Stewart, then known as the “domestic goddess” — or some other equally dismissive moniker — published her first book, Entertaining. It was a blockbuster success that was soon followed by a torrent of food, decorating, and lifestyle bestsellers.

In 1990, after a few years making books with the likes of Jackie Onassis, Irving Penn, Arthur Miller, and, yes, Martha Stewart, Towey and her Clarkson Potter colleague, Isolde Motley, were lured away by Stewart, who had struck a deal with Time Inc. to conceive and launch a new magazine.

Towey’s modest assignment? Define and create the Martha Stewart brand. Put a face to the name. From scratch. And then distill it across a rapidly-expanding media and retail empire.

In the process, Stewart, Motley, and Towey redefined everything about not only women’s magazines, but the media industry itself — and spawned imitations from Oprah, Rachael, and even Rosie.

By the turn of the millennium, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, as it was rebranded in 1997, included seven magazines, multiple TV projects, a paint collection with Sherwin-Williams, a mail-order catalog, Martha by Mail, multimillion-dollar deals with retailers Kmart, Home Depot, and Macy’s, a line of crafts for Michael’s, a custom furniture brand with Bernhardt, and even more bestselling books. And the responsibility for the visual identity of all of it fell to Towey and her incredibly talented team. It was a massive job.

We talk to Towey about her early years in New Jersey, about being torn between two men (“Pierre” and Stephen), eating frog legs with Condé Nast’s notorious editorial director, Alexander Liberman, and, about how, when all is said and done, life is about making beautiful things with extraordinary people.

Episode 56: Alan Webber & Bill Taylor (Founding Editors: Fast Company)

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In the summer of 1995, I got an offer I couldn’t refuse. It came from my guests today, Alan Webber and Bill Taylor, the founding editors of Fast Company, widely acknowledged as one of the magazine industry’s great success stories. 

Their vision for the magazine was an exercise in thinking different. Nothing we did hewed to the conventional wisdom of magazine-making. Our founders came from politics and activism born in the ivy halls of Harvard. Our HQ was far from the center of the magazine world, in Boston’s North End—“leave the pages, take the cannolis.” And Fast Company was not a part of the five families of magazine publishing. It wouldn’t have worked if it was.  

I was one of the first people Alan and Bill hired, and as the magazine’s founding art director, I could tell Fast Company was going to be big. And it was big. Huge, in fact. Shortly after its launch, a typical issue of the magazine routinely topped out at almost 400 pages. We had to get up to speed, and fast.

Its mission was big, too. Bill and Alan’s plan sounded simple: to offer rules for radicals that would be inspiring and instructive; to encourage their audience to think bigger about what they might achieve for their companies and themselves, and to provide tools to help us all succeed in work … and in life. Their mantra: Work is personal. 

The effect, however, was even bigger. The magazine was a blockbuster hit, winning ASME awards for General Excellence and Design. It was Ad Age’s 1995 Launch of the Year. Bill and Alan were named Adweek’s editors of the year in 1999. It even spawned its own reader-generated social network, the Company of Friends, that counted over 40,000 members worldwide. And it brought together an extraordinary team of creatives who, to this day, carry on the mission in their own way—including the founders. 

Nearly thirty years after the launch of the magazine, Alan is currently serving his second term as the mayor of Santa Fe, New Mexico. Bill is the best-selling author of Mavericks at Work, among other books, and continues to lead the conversation on transforming business. 

We often said that Fast Company was the one that would ruin us for all future jobs. It was a moment in time that I and my colleagues will treasure forever. I am thrilled to be able to share that story with you today.

Episode 55: Jody Quon (Photo Editor: New York, The New York Times Magazine, more)

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Jody Quon’s desk is immaculate. There’s a lot there, but she knows exactly where everything is. It’s like an image out of Things Organized Neatly.

She rarely swears. Or loses her temper. In fact she’s one of the most temperate people in the office. Maybe the most. She’s often been referred to as a “rock.”

She remembers every shoot and how much it cost to produce. She knows who needs work and who owes her favors.

She’s got the magazine schedule memorized and expects you to as well. She’s probably got your schedule memorized, too. She’s stylish, graceful, and charming. And she doesn’t take ‘no’ for an answer.

She’s usually one of the first in the office and last to leave. In fact, on the day she was scheduled to give birth to her first child, she came to work and put in a full day. When her water broke at around 6pm, she called her husband to say, “It’s time.”

I don’t know if any of this is true. Except the baby thing. That is true. Kathy Ryan told me so.

I had a teacher in high school, Ms. Trice. She was tough. I didn’t much like her. She would often call me out for this or that. Forty years later, she’s the only one I remember, and I remember her very fondly. In my career, I’ve often thought that the best managing editors, production directors, and photography directors were just like Ms. Trice. These positions, more than any others, are what make magazines work. They’re hard on you because they expect you to be as professional as you can be. They make you better. (I see you, Claire, Jenn, Nate, Carol, and Sally.)

I suspect that a slew of Jody Quon’s coworkers and collaborators feel that same way about her. Actually, I don’t suspect. I know. I’ve heard it from all corners of the magazine business. I heard it again yesterday from her mentor and good friend, Kathy Ryan.

“She just has that work ethic,” Ryan says. “It’s just incredible when you think about it. The ambition of some of the things that they’ve done. And that has been happening right from the beginning. Ambition in the best sense. Thinking big. And she’s cool, always cool under pressure. We had a grand time working together. I still miss her.”

Jody Quon is one of those people who makes everybody around her better. That’s what I believe. And after this conversation, you probably will, too.

Episode 54: Samira Nasr (Editor: Harper’s Bazaar)

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It’s a cliché because it’s true: in the fashion world, you’ve got your show ponies and you’ve got your workhorses. We mean it as a compliment when we say that Samira Nasr truly earned her place at the helm of the 156-year-old institution, Harper’s Bazaar.

Don’t get us wrong. Samira is seriously glamorous—she’s the kind of woman who phrases like “effortless chic” were invented to describe. But she did not cruise to her current perch on connections and camera-readiness alone. Rather, she worked her way up, attending J-school at NYU, then making her way through the fashion closets of Vogue, Mirabella, Vanity Fair, InStyle, and Elle—where we met in the trenches, and got to see firsthand how she mixes old-school, roll-up-your-sleeves work ethic and her own fresh vision.

When Samira got the big job at Bazaar in 2020, she became the title’s first-ever Black editor-in-chief. The Bazaar she has rebuilt is as close as a mainstream fashion magazine gets to a glossy art mag, but it is far from chilly. As she has long put it, “I just want to bring more people with me to the party.” Which, when you think about it, is a brilliant mantra for a rapidly-shifting era in media and culture. How to keep a legacy fashion magazine going circa 2025? Drop the velvet rope.

The timing for this mantra could not have been better. After her first year in the role, Bazaar took home its first-ever National Magazine Award for General Excellence.

In our interview, Samira talked about remaking one of fashion’s most legendary magazines—plus, jeans, budgets, and even the odd parenting tip. We had fun, and we hope you do too.

Episode 53: Barbara deWilde (Designer: NYT Cooking, Martha Stewart Living, more)

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I was a publication designer for 20 years, making book covers at Knopf with Sonny Mehta, Carol Carson, and Chip Kidd. Later, in the early aughts, I made stories and books—and other things—at Martha Stewart Living. Then I took a brief adventure to graduate school—to learn a new trade. And finally I moved to The New York Times, where I helped create several of its legendary digital products, like NYT Cooking.

In December 2020, I bought a building on the Delaware River—and opened the Frenchtown Bookshop.

My name is Barbara deWilde—and this is The Next Page.

There’s a lot of talk these days about the new arc of a career replacing the long-standing one—at least in our business—of “work until you drop.” And given our focus here at Magazeum, we’re painfully aware that, for many, sudden change comes earlier than expected.

But magazine people are built different. And these days, with an industry in turmoil, more of us are resetting intentionally—creating a “second act” that’s often more purposeful than our prior work, doing something we’re good at with people we trust and admire. Over and over, we’re meeting more and more experienced magazine makers who tell us they want that for themselves.

We believe that creative magazine work—call it “magazine thinking” and its related skillset—can be a powerful driver of individual professional change.

The Next Page is our new podcast series featuring conversations with magazine creators who’ve left high-profile positions to see what comes next. We’re glad you're here.

Episode 52: David Haskell (Editor & Distiller: New York, Kings County Distillery)

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Like many of you, I was stunned by what happened on November 5th. It’s going to take me some time to reckon with what this all says about the values of a large portion of this country. As part of that reckoning—and for some much-needed relief—I’ve opted to spend less time with media in general for a bit. 

But on the morning after I couldn’t ignore an email I got from today’s guest, New York magazine editor-in-chief David Haskell. [You can find it on our website].

What struck me most about his note—which was sent to the magazine’s million-and-a-half subscribers—was what it didn’t say. There were no recriminations. Nothing about how Kamala Harris had failed to “read the room.”  Not a word about Joe Biden’s unwillingness to step aside when he should have. No calls to “resist.” In fact, the hometown president-elect’s name went unspoken (as it is here).

What Haskell did say that left a mark on me was this:

“I consider our jobs as magazine journalists a privilege at times like this.” 

I was an editor at Clay Felker’s New York magazine, the editor-in-chief of Boston magazine, and I led the creative team at Inc. magazine. And it was there, at Inc., that I had a similar experience. It was 9/11.

I wrote my monthly column in the haze that immediately followed the attacks, though it wouldn’t appear in print until the December issue. It was titled, “Think Small. No, Smaller.” In it, I urged our community of company builders to focus their attention on the things we can control. This is how it ended:

What we can say for certain is that the arena over which any of us has control has, for now, grown smaller. In these smaller arenas, the challenge is to build, or rebuild, in ourselves and our organizations the quiet confidence that we still have the ability to get the right things done.

For all the attention that gets paid to EICs, most of the work you do is done through the members of your team: writers, and editors, and designers, and so many others.

My friend, Dan Okrent, the former Life magazine editor and Print Is Dead guest, once said, “Magazines bring us together into real communities.”

Moments like this demand something different—something direct and personal from an editor to that community. Something that offers a challenge, but also an opportunity, to answer the question in a clear and credible way: So what do we do now?

Episode 51: Steve Brodner (Illustrator: The Nation, The New Yorker, Esquire, more)

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When your boss tells you to track down an amusing Steve Brodner factoid to open the podcast with, and one of the first things you find is a, uh, a “dick army,” welp, that’s what you’re going to go with. 

Lest you judge me, I can explain. Brodner’s drawing of this army was inspired by a guy who was actually named Dick Armey (A-R-M-E-Y)! He was Newt Gingrich’s wingman back in the nineties. I thought to myself, The people need to know this. 

However, with the election now a few days behind us, maybe the time for talking about men and their junk is over? 

What you really want to learn about is this Society of Illustrators Hall of Famer’s career. Brodner’s work, which has been called “unflinching, driven by a strong moral compass, and imbued with a powerful sense of compassion,” has been featured in Rolling Stone, The Washington Post Magazine, Esquire, The New Yorker, and many others.

In this episode, Brodner talks about how the death of print has led to the current misinformation crisis. As it gets harder and harder to tell what’s true, the future becomes increasingly uncertain. Even his most biting drawings are rooted in truth. 

“Satire doesn't work if you are irresponsibly unreasonably inventive. If satire doesn't have truth in it, it's not funny.”

A production note: This episode was recorded exactly one week before the election. As our conversation began, we took turns telling stories about memorable election night parties, and our plans for November 5th. Here’s Steve, talking about his plans…

 

Episode 50: E. Jean Carroll (Writer: Elle, Playboy, Esquire, Outside, more)

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Everybody knows that in May 2023, a jury found Donald Trump liable for defaming and abusing E. Jean Carroll, and awarded her $5 million. And everybody also knows that in January 2024, another jury found Trump liable for defamation against her to the tune of $83.3 million. P.S., with interest, his payout will now total over $100 million. 

But not everybody remembers—because we were guppies, and because, ahem, Print is Dead, y’all—that E. Jean is a goddamn swashbucking magazine-world legend: a writer of such style, wit, and sheer ballsy joie de vivre that she carved out a name for herself in the boys club of New Journalism, writing juicy and iconic stories in the seventies and eighties for Outside, Esquire, Playboy, and more—and then finally leapt over to women’s magazines, where she held down the role of advice columnist at Elle for, wait for it, 27 years. Elle is where we intersected with E. Jean and where we first saw up close her boundless enthusiasm and generosity for womankind. 

We’ll also never forget sitting at one of the magazine’s annual fancypants dinners honoring Women in Hollywood—these are real star-studded affairs, folks—when Jennifer Aniston stood up to receive her award and started her speech with a shoutout to her beloved “Auntie E.,” whose advice she and millions of other American women had devoured, and lived by, for decades. 

Here’s the truth: The woman that most of the world came to know through the most harrowing circumstances imaginable really is and has always been that fearless, that unsinkable. It’s not a persona—it’s the genuine article. And when you hear her stories about how hard she slogged away for decades to finally get her big break in publishing, listeners, you will have a whole new respect for her. 

As E. Jean tells us herself in this interview, she does very, very little press. So we couldn’t be more honored that our friend and idol and the Spread’s most enthusiastic hype woman sat down after hours with us for this interview. We just hope we did her justice!

 

Episode 49: Richard Baker (Designer: Us, Life, Premiere, Inc., more)

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Just about every magazine Richard Baker worked for has died. Even one called Life.

Also dead: The Washington Post Magazine, Vibe, Premiere, and Parade. Another, Saveur, also died, but has recently been resurrected. And Us Magazine? A mere shadow of its former self.

Sadly, Baker’s career narrative is not that uncommon. (That’s why you’re listening to a podcast called Print Is Dead). 

But Richard Baker is a survivor. He’s survived immigrating from Jamaica as a kid. He’s survived the sudden and premature loss of three influential and beloved mentors. And he’s survived a near-fatal medical emergency in the New York subway.

Yet, in the face of all that carnage, Richard Baker just keeps on going. To this day, he’s living the magazine dream—“classic edition”—as a designer at a sturdy newsstand publication (Inc. magazine), in a brick-and-mortar office (7 World Trade Center), working with real people, and making something beautiful with ink and paper.