Kat Kinsman
Verified
(She/Her)
As seen in:
Food & Wine,
Tinfoil Swans,
CNN,
CNN Travel,
Medium,
MSN,
MSN Malaysia,
MSN Singapore,
Yahoo Entertainment,
Yahoo Life,
Yahoo Canada,
Yahoo News Australia
and
Covers:
food, mental health, chefs, restaurants, food news, bartenders, hospitality, anxiety
Doesn't Cover:
tech, diets, wellness, parenting, kids, fashion, new products, wine, roundups, restaurant opening, menu specials, travel
Executive Features Editor @foodandwine. Founder of @chefswithissues. Author of Hi, Anxiety. Host of the Tinfoil Swans podcast.
Interview
What was your first job as a journalist?
Grilling editor for AOL.
Have you ever used a typewriter?
Yes.
How is social media changing news?
It's great to have eyes and ears all over the world, and incredible for facilitating conversations, but not a substitute for reporting.
Who's your favorite fictional journalist?
Harriet the Spy
What does it mean to be a journalist?
Telling bulletproof stories.
How do you prefer to be pitched on stories?
E-mail or in-person. Not the phone. Never, ever, EVER the phone.
What tools and software do you use to do your job?
Wordpress, Transcribe, my iPhone, my digital recorder and an in-house CMS.
What's your favorite social network?
Twitter
Who do you wish followed you?
Hillary Clinton
Why did you become a journalist?
It was thoroughly accidental, but I like making words happen.
Did you work for your high school newspaper? If so, what did you do there?
We had no such thing, but I was the EIC of the yearbook.
What story are you most proud of writing or working on?
My personal essays and reporting on mental health. I honestly believe they've helped chip away at taboos and started dialogue.
What advice can you offer to aspiring journalists?
Twitter listicles do not "journalism" make. Be as useful and versatile as you possibly can. There is no substitute for fact checking.
When's the best time to pitch you?
Phone: The 5th of Never. E-mail: Any time. I don't sleep.
What's the worst pitch you ever got?
A PR person once told me their wife loves the content on tart.org which is just my personal site with links to my work. Obvious lie.
What's your favorite drink?
When I'm drinking: French 75. When I'm teetotaling: seltzer and bitters.
What's the most common misperception about your beat?
I don't go eat free, fancy meals all the time. That doesn't align with my ethics and I'm more interested in the people working there.
Would you like to take the Muck Rack Interview?
Create a Muck Rack profile.