Last Night With Adam Rapoport
Last night I went to an American Society of Magazine Editors event where former GQ styles editor and current Bon Appétit editor-in-chief Adam Rapoport was giving a talk about how he got to where he is today, and how he’s attempting to save the future of food magazines.
How he ended up as editor-in-chief of Bon Appétit:
Rapoport worked for his daily college newspaper at UC-Berkeley, considered becoming a sports writer, and then decided that he should write about food when he realized how much his eyes lit up whenever he started talking about it. Through some murmurings from a friend, he found out that the James Beard Foundation was looking for a writer and editor for their publications, and it was there that he really got to understand food, restaurants, and the chefs who were making culinary waves (“They asked me if I could write a profile of Daniel Boulud, and I said, ‘Who’s Daniel Boulud?’”). His experience writing and editing for the foundation led him to a job editing the dining section at Time Out New York, and then to a job editing the front of the book at GQ. When Jim Nelson became editor-in-chief of GQ in 2003, he was given the opportunity to be the styles and food editor—a positon he held until he was offered the job as the editor-in-chief at Bon Appétit. His advice for new writers: Get really knowledgeable and experienced in the topic you want to write about. Writing for a small publication for the James Beard Foundation and learning about food there opened all future doors for him.
On working at GQ:
Before Jim Nelson became editor-in-chief of GQ in 2003, Rapoport was editing the front of the book for former editor-in-chief Art Cooper, who he says had a less than stellar relationship with him while he was a staff writer. Rapoport says that if it weren’t for Jim Nelson taking over the magazine, he would have definitely quit his job and moved on to another publication—having a boss you respect, who you can learn things from, and who trusts your level of creativity is crucial. If you don’t have that, you’re going to be miserable very quickly, and you need to go somewhere else where you’ll thrive better.
On being an editorial assistant at a publication where there’s no room to grow:
What if you’re an editorial assistant earning $25,000 a year, and you love the publication you work at, but there doesn’t seem to be any room to grow on staff? There’s only so much love you can give until you get tired of getting nothing in return. Sometimes it’s easier to move on up by looking out for openings at other companies. If you wait for an editor job to open up at the publication you work at, you might be waiting for a very long time. “The economy sucks,” Rapoport said, adding that hiring freezes aren’t uncommon even if an editor or writer leaves.
On how writers get hired:
“I have never once hired someone by going through human resources at Condé Nast,” he said. How virtually every writer, editor, or art director has gotten hired? Recommendations. He hired his assistant by asking his friend Andy Ward, a former executive editor at GQ and the current executive editor at Random House, if he knew anyone. Ward’s assistant recommended her friend, who was quickly hired after a meeting with Rapoport. “It’s like a date,” he said. “You know in the first few minutes if someone is going to work out.”
Hearing “it’s who you know” was a little disheartening for some of the freelance writers at the event, but Rapoport said they’ve taken the first step by getting themselves to New York City. The next step is to start networking and building relationships with editors so you can start getting those freelancing gigs. If you have writer friends, ask for names of editors. If you don’t know anyone, go to events like the ones thrown by ASME last night. I drank my free beer and ate my free pulled pork slider and quickly took off to watch some Olympics, but some young and smart go-getters zeroed in on Rapoport, as well as editors at Seventeen, The Knot and Rachael Ray as I headed out the door.
Where do you find out about these events? Although I am in Canada so maybe that would not be helpful.
@Megano! There must be a Canadian equivalent of the American Society of Magazine Editors? Or maybe events thrown by The Walrus? They’re a terrific Canadian magazine.
@Mike Dang There is an editor’s association, but I’m not sure if it’s just magazines or books or both. Also you have to be a member and it is expensive. And I think a lot of the events are not free either. :s
So his advice to become a successful magazine editor is:
1. Get a prestigious writing/editorial job straight out of college. (Wait. What? How did you get a writing and editorial job for anything out of the Daily Californian? It is un-readable, even for undergrads).
2. rock that job for an undefined amount of time, parlay experience and connections into an editorial position at a large-ish magazine (Wait. Again: how?)
3. That’s it. Now you’re a successful editor. Maybe someone will give you an even better job.
@siege91 He said he got the job at James Beard through a friend. He’s also in his forties, and the landscape is different for younger writers, but it’s true: A lot of it really is who you know and through networking and meeting people. The majority of writing jobs I’ve gotten were through editors I’ve met as an intern, or at events, or in grad school.
@Mike Dang Friend connections! Yeah, I guess that’s how it works everywhere. It’s how I got my job (I am not a magazine editor, sadly).
The whole “who you know” system must be why glossy magazines have such great content that hordes of readers are constantly battering down their doors to throw money at them.
No but seriously, that whole system is exploitative and vile and anti-egalitarian. It makes the financial industry look like a bleeding-heart affirmative action jobs program.
Blogs have their problems too but the whole blogger-book deal-staff-writer career trajectory that seems to be becoming increasingly common is just miles better than the old intern/assistant game. I mean how many great writers with diverse perspectives has the American media lost in the last 20, 30 years because they were unwilling or unable to live in New York on $25k a year indefinitely while awaiting their “big break”?
@stuffisthings I am interested, Mike, that you seem to believe it is possible to meet editors and get work through random events and internships and whatnot.
I mean, I once wanted to be a (newspaper) journalist and the editors I worked with as an intern liked me — despite my being an awful early 20s stereotype — and tried to hire me several times in subsequent years, but were unable to due to lack of money. I now work in a different highly competitive but low-paid “prestige” field and the people I always see crowding around the big shots at events come across to me as slightly sleazy and unprofessional. Then again, we also routinely hire our interns and pay our assistants normal salaries, so maybe it is just a money thing.
@stuffisthings I don’t want to make it sound like all you have to do to break into magazine writing is go to random events and network. This is a very, very difficult business to break into, especially if you are a freelance writer (see: Natasha’s admission a few days ago that she earned $22K last year writing longform pieces for magazines). The few friends I have who are making a living as freelancers have worked really hard to network and form good relationships with editors. I’m also fortunate to be in a position where editors will think of an idea they want to do and consider me to write it. It’s also very easy to get burnt out and quit writing and editing altogether. I often get inquiries from young writers asking me about Journalism school (where I met a lot of writers and editors), and my advice is that if they get the money to go they should certainly do it, otherwise it’s a hard business to be in and have to pay back school loans.
@Mike Dang As cheesy as it sounds, I really do think blogs have a potential to revolutionize at least a certain kind of journalism and how people get into that field. Even if you’re trying to do the NYC in-person networking thing, which, from what you say, seems to still be necessary, it’s much easier to be able to point to a body of work and say: “This is what my writing is like.” Rather than “Hey, I am really good at getting you coffee, why not make me an assistant editor?” Plus you’re spending time honing your writing skills instead of your coffee-fetching skills.
I guess what I’m saying is if I really wanted to get into the media world today, I’d probably still move to NYC, but I’d get a decent-paying day job and spend my free time blogging and networking — rather than just trying to get any job at all at a magazine or publishing house or whatever.
(I really do find the whole process of “breaking into” high-status, low-pay jobs to be very interesting from a microeconomic perspective. When there’s a lot of people who want to do something, not many people who want to pay for that thing, and skills are very hard to judge pre hoc, you tend to get these weird dues-paying situations, which function in economic terms as a highly inefficient screening process. Which always makes me think, there’s got to be a better way!)
@stuffisthings Well, if you actually want to make money with a blog you pretty much have to do the intern/assistant thing too.