Howard Mandel
VerifiedInterview
What was your first job as a journalist?
Copy clerk, Chicago Daily News
Have you ever used a typewriter?
Oh yeah.
How is social media changing news?
It's much hard to sell articles, fewer publications and no ability to make multiple sales in disparate markets.
What does it mean to be a journalist?
Being a watchdog: Observant, honest, tireless, sceptical, able to communicate, willing to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted.
What tools and software do you use to do your job?
Mac, Word, Tascam recorder, Hindenburg sound editing, iMovie, SONOS.
What's your favorite social network?
I use Facebook for semi-professional/semi-personal communications
Why did you become a journalist?
I liked writing, loved the rush of news and getting to know things first, sharing info, digging in.
Did you work for your high school newspaper? If so, what did you do there?
I was briefly a columnist, later the copyeditor of my high school newspaper
What story are you most proud of writing or working on?
My Creative Music Studio story for The Wire, my not yet published novel On Your Mark.
What advice can you offer to aspiring journalists?
Look for topics/subjects no one else is covering but fits publications' and readers' concerns. Write tight -- edit yourself before others do.
What's your favorite drink?
Ice water, but I drink stronger stuff, too.
When you're not at a computer, where are you most likely to be?
reading, playing piano, flute/sax or synthesizer
Aside from your own, what's your favorite publication to read?
Crime fiction, hard boiled variety -- and then there's the NYT, New York, WashPo
What's the most common misperception about your beat?
That jazz specifically and music that's not essentially commercial are irrelevant
Would you like to take the Muck Rack Interview?
Create a Muck Rack profile.