This is a really exciting time at Paste Magazine. Not only are we debuting several new sections, but also a quarterly edition which includes a vinyl record of music recorded in Paste’s New York City studio. You can get your subscription here at our Indiegogo page.
First, a bit about me: The Editor. My credibility in this arena comes from all of my professional experience prior to this job. I’ve written on the side as long as I can remember, but this is my first full time gig in journalism. I believe that this is to my advantage, as nearly all of my jobs prior to this came in sales, or as I call it “the foot soldiers of capitalism.” Want to know what’s going on in any industry? Ask a sales guy; they’re the ones talking to everyone and executing transactions (which is the central basis of any healthy economy). The other pillar of my experience comes from what I viewed as my version of grad school (but with less debt): launching a startup business with a good friend from college.
My friend and I soon faced the realities of our fading 20s and accepted our underwhelming but satisfying roles within corporate America. Roughly 49% of people are very satisfied with their jobs. Satisfied doesn’t mean happy. It means “yeah, sure.” If you’re an employer, think real hard about that figure and what you’re doing to contribute to it.
We will report on the news in two manners: features and short news posts. The posts will highlight interesting or funny items that are worth spending a couple minutes exploring, while the features will take a deeper dive into an important subject. We will not report on news like the daily movement of the stock market or who is getting hired where, as you can get that basic nuts-and-bolts information from any newswire. If you’re reading Paste, it’s because you’re learning something or being entertained. We will try to not waste your time.
That said, it may happen simply because we plan to explore the space, and no one bats 1.000. “Business” is a vertical that encompasses a wide range of ideas. Our attention will certainly be focused on the pressing issues of the day like new innovations in the market, the incredibly large catchall that is “small business,” and news coming from the economic flanks of the world’s governments. However, we do not want to pigeon-hole ourselves before we can get a sense for what our readers care about, and the narratives which will materialize in the coming months.
I will be moving from Boston down to Paste’s headquarters outside Atlanta to be the Editor of the new Business and Media sections, and I will take over Politics come early 2017, as Shane Ryan will move into a staff writer role. In short, we’re growing, and I want to lay out our mission in this section with you – the reader, as to how we aim to earn a slice of your time.
A few specific areas of interest for me in this gigantic sandbox are 3D printing, the new marijuana economy (now 100% legal in 7 states which comprise 23% of US GDP), and global central bank activity (I won’t bore you with every detail, but I think we can all agree that interest rate movements are pretty important, no?). The hot topic is automation, for good reason. It is a massive benefit, particularly to large companies that can afford gigantic factories that basically run on their own. However, automation will destroy jobs. 3D printers will create them by revolutionizing some portion of nearly every industry. I was invited to 2014 New York Techday, and was blown away at the seemingly endless line of 3D printers that all made sturdy, yet detailed items in minutes. I bought one as soon as I got this job just to better understand the vertical.
Simply put, I’m just a news junkie who Paste Magazine has entrusted to oversee a section which can go in a lot of different directions. I plan to empower our writers to take us down those various paths, which includes our assistant editor Berrak Sarikaya. She brings a tremendous amount of professionalism and experience to the section, particularly in an area of weakness for me: small business. My sales experience has largely been with bigger outlets. Her work at Google Small Business alone qualifies her, but she adds another six-plus years with her time at Amplify Your Biz. Her bona fides literally speak for themselves.
We will explore the ever-expanding world of “business” to whatever ends we may find. This section is basically a startup. Paste has entrusted me with an assistant and a budget to assemble a roster of freelance writers to produce content that draws eyeballs which will hopefully draw Paste into the positive feedback loop that every business so desperately seeks. We can’t do that without you, the reader. The key difference is that in this business, the customer is not always right. That’s not what we’re here for. If you want fake news, you know where to get that Macedonian-based nonsense by now. We aim to inform with verifiable evidence, and if you walk away from our little corner of the web with more knowledge than you walked in with, that means we’ve done our job.
Stay tuned.