Staff writer, emeritus @the_millions. Winner 2022 Pitch Perfect @BloodyScotland. Impenitent in 2026. Slava Heroyam.
Interview
What was your first job as a journalist?
College humor column.
Have you ever used a typewriter?
Yes. Trained on one.
How is social media changing news?
Destroying impulse control. Personalities over story development.
What does it mean to be a journalist?
Allowing cultural phenomena unfamiliar to you to inform you and, through you, to inform others.
What's the funniest news-related #hashtag you've seen?
Don't read hashtags.
How do you prefer to be pitched on stories?
Brief. Be concise. No academese.
What tools and software do you use to do your job?
Word. Chat GPT.
What's your favorite social network?
None.
Who do you wish followed you?
My father.
Why did you become a journalist?
News junkie from childhood.
Did you work for your high school newspaper? If so, what did you do there?
No.
What story are you most proud of writing or working on?
On American Jazz musician Ambrose Akinbusire's gig in Kyiv.
What advice can you offer to aspiring journalists?
Read. Write the way you write, not the way they'd have you write.
When's the best time to pitch you?
Mornings
What's the best pitch you ever got?
Cover the War in Ukraine.
What's the worst pitch you ever got?
Write about a gender studies take on Shakespeare.
What's your favorite drink?
Water.
When you're not at a computer, where are you most likely to be?
With my sons.
Aside from your own, what's your favorite publication to read?
London Review of Books.
What's the most common misperception about your beat?
Ukraine is not Russia.
Would you like to take the Muck Rack Interview?
Create a Muck Rack profile.