Paid by the Word: Conversations with Writers and Editors

In this episode of the podcast, I’m interviewed by radio talk show host Mike Bennett. Mike and I go way back, and I hope you enjoy our conversation as he prompts me to reflect on my career as a journalist and share some highlights from my recent expedition into the wonderful and rapidly expanding universe of podcasting.

This episode is our Season One Finale, and we’ll be taking a short break before launching Season Two in October.

Please subscribe to Paid by the Word on your favorite podcast platform and catch up on any episodes you might have missed. They’re all absolutely free, of course! 

Following the twin shocks of Brexit and the election of Donald Trump, the concept of a unified western transatlantic community seemed like a sentimental relic of a bygone age.  Yet in his new book, Pax Transatlantica: America and Europe in the Post-Cold War Era,  author and international historian Jussi Hanhimäki explains why the relationship is far from over.

Despite the potential fallout from current trade wars—especially between the US and China—and the rise of economic nationalism, the West still benefits from significant transatlantic trade and massive investment flows. Hanhimäki traces the parallel evolution of domestic politics on both sides of the Atlantic, focusing on the rise of populism. He contends that populism is not causing a rift between the US and Europe. Rather, the spread of populism demonstrates that their politics and culture remain closely integrated.

I hope my conversation with Jussi renews your sense of optimism about this truly remarkable alliance.

In this episode, I speak with award-winning author and teacher Cynthia Gregory. Her published short stories include Baby Blood, Melting at Both Ends, Use Me, and Rosalinda's Ambition.

Cynthia’s work has appeared in respected publications such as The Sun, Glimmer Train, the Briar Cliff Review, Santa Barbara Review, The Ear, and Central PA Magazine.  She took second place in the Writer's Digest annual fiction contest, first place in the Glimmer Train Family Matters short story competition, and first place in the Mark Twain Short Fiction Prize. 

Cynthia is also the author of Journaling as Sacred Practice, a book that helps writers stay focused and productive. She writes that each of the book’s chapters, is "a love letter to the art of creative writing, where both the fledgling writer and the seasoned scribe will find encouragement, advice, and lessons in the craft of journaling." 

I’m delighted that Cynthia found the time in her busy schedule to sit down and chat about her work. I hope you find our conversation, which was recorded in November 2020, to be entertaining and useful. 

In this episode, I’ll be chatting with radio personality Mike Bennett, the popular co-host of Mike & Kacey in the Morning on WHUD, the radio station serving New York State’s Mid-Hudson Valley, a region with seven counties and more than 1.1 million residents.

Many of those residents listen to WHUD, and Mike’s baritone voice has become a familiar part of their daily routines. If a snowstorm forces your local schools to close early, or it’s National Nurses Day, chances are you’ll hear about it from Mike first.

Mike is also the author of “Don’t Pay the Ransom, I’ve Escaped: Memories of a Life on the Radio.” I love Mike’s book, which captures his gentle humor, his affection for the Mid-Hudson Valley, and his sheer enjoyment of being on the radio. I hope you enjoy our conversation! 

Jackson Thompson is a sports writer for Insider. His articles tend to focus on the health – and the rights – of athletes. Jackson’s work has also been featured in The Boston Globe and Sports Illustrated.

Over the course of his career, he’s covered the NFL, college football, college basketball, horse racing and New Jersey high school sports. 

 In this episode of the podcast, Jackson shares some interesting tales of sports journalism, and he recounts the time he covered the Hambletonian Stakes, one of America’s most famous harness racing competitions.

Alfred Poor, PhD, is the founding Editor of Health Tech Insider, a website and weekly email newsletter that provides curated news and original analysis about mobile and wearable technology for health and medical applications. Alfred is known internationally as a speaker, writer, and analyst. 

Armed with a biology degree from Harvard, he’s spent the past 30 years reporting on a wide range of technology topics. For more than two decades, he wrote extensively for PC Magazine and other major computing titles. Alfred is the author or co-author of more than a dozen books, and he continues to be fascinated by shiny, sparkly things that can make a difference for the better in people’s lives.

In our conversation, we talked about his role as a health tech futurist. We also spoke about the evolution of tech journalism and we talked about what happens to society at large when you stop paying writers to create in-depth carefully reported articles. I began by asking him how the shift to online publishing changed the economics of storytelling ...

Door-to-door selling. If you’ve ever done it, you know it’s grueling work. Throughout most of its history, door-to-door selling was considered a man’s job. That was before Avon invented the Avon Lady, a concept that revolutionized selling and opened the door for generations of women who wanted to become independent entrepreneurs.

Katina Manko, an independent scholar, has written a thoroughly researched book about the history of Avon’s distributed sales force model and its lasting impact on our culture. I couldn’t help but draw comparisons between the Avon Ladies and their modern-day counterparts in the gig economy. I hope you enjoy my conversation with Katina, and I hope you have a chance to read her book, Ding Dong! Avon Calling! Wow, just saying that brings back memories of my childhood.

Edvige Jean-François is an award-winning global journalist and producer. At CNN, she served as Washington Bureau Producer, responsible for producing national and political news stories. She covered Capitol Hill, the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. State Department and the White House. She was a producer for CNN’s Jim Acosta, delivering reports for The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer and other major network news franchises.  At CNN International, a subsidiary of CNN, she served as a senior producer of international features and sponsorships, and as a producer of special projects. Edvige is a graduate of Hamilton College in Clinton, NY. 

I caught up with Edvige recently and we had a wonderful conversation about journalism. We spoke about the skill and the instinct that enable really good journalists to uncover the interesting little stories that are often hidden within the larger stories. I hope you enjoy our conversation!

Professor Phoebe S.K. Young teaches undergraduate and graduate students at the University of Colorado in Boulder. She is the recipient of the 2016 Boulder Faculty Assembly Award for Distinction in Teaching and Pedagogy. She is also the author of two books, California Vieja: Culture and Memory in a Modern American Place  and Camping Grounds: Public Nature in America from the Civil War to the Occupy Movement.  

In our conversation, Professor Young spoke about why she chose to write about camping, and what she learned over the course of her research.