Gary Belsky on Journalism, Editing, and Trivia

EconTalk

Library of Economics and Liberty

Ethics, Philosophy, Economics, Books, Science, Business, Courses, Social Sciences, Society & Culture, Interviews, Education, History

4.7 • 4.3K Ratings

🗓️ 24 May 2010

⏱️ 74 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Gary Belsky, Editor-in-Chief at ESPN The Magazine, talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about his career path in journalism and the day-to-day life of editing a major American magazine. Belsky discusses some of the lessons of his early career as a business journalist. The discussion then turns to the magazine, its creativity and the perks and challenges of editing the magazine, managing the staff, and chatting up Serena Williams. The conversation closes with a discussion of Belsky's theory of trivia and some of his favorite trivia questions.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Welcome to Econ Talk, part of the Library of Economics and Liberty. I'm your host Russ Roberts
0:13.9	of George Mason University and Stanford University's Hoover Institution. Our website is econtalk.org
0:21.2	where you can subscribe, find other episodes, comment on this podcast, and find links to
0:26.5	another information related to today's conversation. Our email address is mailadicontalk.org. We'd
0:33.6	love to hear from you.
0:36.8	Today is May 17, 2010, and my guest is Gary Belski, Editor-in-Chief of ESPN, the magazine. Gary
0:46.2	welcome to Econ Talk. What I'd like to do today is talk about what the job of editor of a
0:54.2	major American magazine is like, economic pressures that face the magazine business and media
0:59.4	generally, and perhaps at face ESPN. Gary, in addition to being editor of the magazine is also
1:04.4	the author of a number of books. I hope we'll talk about those at the end of the show. First, Gary,
1:09.5	talk a little bit about how you got to where you are. I think there are a lot of people who think
1:14.6	being editor of ESPN, the magazine is maybe one of the coolest jobs you could possibly have in America,
1:19.5	so they might want to imitate your career path, and they're probably just curious how you get
1:25.0	a job like that. Tell us where you were and how you ended up where you are.
1:29.3	I'll begin in a 5,000 watt radio station in New Arizona. By the way, it ends when you're making 40-year-old
1:37.3	Mary Tyler Moore jokes to start radio interviews. I always, not always, I started writing professionally
1:47.7	when I was 16, oddly enough, a friend of mine who was 17 was writing for a local paper in St. Louis,
1:54.7	and I saw his byline, like a community paper, and I asked him, I had always been a pretty decent
1:59.8	writer, and he started writing, he recommended me, which I think is funny, because he was 17,
2:04.2	to the editor of the paper, and I started doing stuff for them and getting paid, and in fact,
2:07.7	that's how I paid for college was by doing a lot of freelance writing in St. Louis. The reason I'm
2:14.0	mentioning that and going back so far was, I never imagined that I could actually make a full-time
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Library of Economics and Liberty, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Library of Economics and Liberty and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.