INSIDE, OUTSIDE, NOWHERE IS HOME

Yesterday was a sad day for Philadelphia journalism, for its Jewish community and for me. 

The nearly 130-year old Jewish Exponent, the second oldest newspaper of its kind in the country, decided to turn its editorial and production operations over  to Baltimore-based Mid-Atlantic Media, resulting in the layoff of 15 editorial and reporting staff at the paper and its companion magazine, INSIDE.

In an official statement on the Jewish Exponent's website, officials from the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia,who published the Exponent and all of its companion publications, wrote:

We are proud to announce a new affiliation with Mid-Atlantic Media, a growing media company centered in the Baltimore-Washington, D.C., corridor with which we have contracted for the Jewish Exponent’s editorial and production operations. Readers of Jewish newspapers in three large regional Jewish communities already benefit from the expertise of Mid-Atlantic Media, which today publishes the Baltimore Jewish Times, Washington Jewish Week and Pittsburgh’s Jewish Chronicle.

What can we in Philadelphia expect from Mid-Atlantic Media?

• A commitment to more local content, with less reliance on wire services
• A thriving, vibrant online presence that augments our print edition
• A website optimized for viewing on smartphones and other mobile devices
• A greater commitment to social media content by our journalists
• A newspaper that remains for many years the voice of Philadelphia’s Jewish community

I wrote for INSIDE magazine and a couple of those companion publications  for the past 4 years, and I enjoyed every minute of those 4 years. The magazine was offically discontinued yesterday in the transition over to Mid-Atlantic, and I will dearly miss working with its terrific editor, Greg Salisbury. 

4 years ago this month, Greg asked me to fill in for one of his columnists, our mutual friend, Katie Loeb, at her suggestion, and write an article about beer. He had been the recipient of more than a handful  of press releases from me over the years, and knew I could write, and he knew of my beer pedigree from my years of running the Golden Age of Beer in Philadelphia Tours. But in truth I had never written an article on beer before.  Greg had the story angle ready for me: asking various restaurateurs and tavern owners where they would go to have a beer and who some of their favorite bartenders were. It was the easiest article I've ever written.

Two months later, he asked me to pen another article. "Explore the idea of Jews and baseball,"  he wrote.  At first, I was confused; I had been a food writer and editor in all of my journalistic pusuits, going back to high school. And, well, I thought, I'm not Jewish.

"You're a good writer, though," he said. "You'll figure it out."

He then directed me to request a copy of a relatively new video entitled "Jews and Baseball" from its Canadian producer, and to use the video as a springboard for the article, adding the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY and the National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia as places I should contact. That was the kind of editor Greg was. Intensely creative, strategic and supportive.  I dove into the material and wrote a respectable piece for INSIDE. He was effusive in his praise of the piece, maybe a little too effusive, but he knew that I had been in unchartered territory. That's the kind of editor he was.

Months before I worked for INSIDE  I had written Greg about a friend of mine who had become something of an adventurer, mountain climber and  ice wall climber, who recently made the ascent of Mt. Kilimanjaro.  Greg suggested that I tackle that story myself for the magazine. "You already know most of the story anyway," he told me, and he gave me the name of another person, a local female tennis instructor, who had also recently made the climb. "Give me two articles, side  by side, about 1,000 words each," he instructed. "You can do that." 

And for the next three years, Greg gave me assignments that had barely anything to do with food or any subject with which I was familiar, a risky gambit for  any editor, but Greg plied me with confidence in my abilities as he plied me with unfamiliar subject matter to write about. I wrote about medical weight loss, superstitions (for which I was nominated for a journalism award), unusual wedding venues, Hurricane Sandy's aftermath at the Jersey shore, charitable giving, hard cider, re-purposed industrial buildings, beer cocktails, a Three Stooges museum (!), Kosher Spanish wines,  local craft distillers, eau de vies, a drink advice column, and lastly, for the magazine pictured above, the final issue of INSIDE, artisan coffee roasters in the Philadelphia suburbs.

Every article for INSIDE was an adventure, and every one of them, except for the coffee piece, was a Greg Salisbury idea. And for that I am very grateful. Greg expanded my journalistic bandwidth, helped me polish my writing style and gave me confidence to write outside of my foodie comfort zone, which helped me in a big way to tackle the articles I have written for The Trentonian.

This blog post sounds like an appreciation of Greg Salisbury, something you write after he passes or retires, but I am sure he is quite alive and no where near retirement (he's more than a bit younger than me actually). Greg WAS the magazine, and this  screed started out as an obituary for it, but this is what I should have been writing about all along.  He would probably have suggested that I not write about him at all.  But I chose this story all by myself.

KARMA

I have the privilege during this transition in my life to be the Managing Editor of a newsletter produced by the Professional Service Group (PSG) of Mercer County, which is a free resource for professional networking, training, coaching, support and education for professionals in transition. Its mission statement says that it's a "voluntary, self-managing and mutual support network affiliated with the Mercer County One-Stop Career Center, for professionals who are seeking new employment and contracting opportunities throughout the region."

Next to my extended family, it's the finest group of people with which I've ever been associated.

The facilitator of this group, Craig Jez, is himself a great resource for brainstorming, career counselling, and no-nonsense advice, especially about networking and resume writing. He pens a column for the PSG Newsletter and he calls it The Last Word, and it's always a terrific read. What I like about the column is that Craig writes it in his own voice, and it actually reads like he talks, a mix of salesman/bartender/next-door neighbor that is a delight to experience.

I've had the good fortune of working with many talented and compelling writers as an editor over the years (Lew Bryson, Ken Alan, Jim Tarantino and Katie Loeb among them), but I am particularly enjoying reading Craig's columns from the past 3 years' worth of newsletters, which you can peruse at the PSG website, www.mercopsg.net.

Read them all.

For the July-August issue of the PSG Newsletter, Craig wrote about karma. Here are some highlights, but I encourage you to read the whole article:

"Patience is an attribute you all exercise every day. Patience is responding to the woes of bills due and still smiling at the job interview. Patience is replacing unemployment depression with acts of volunteer kindness. We had a member who recently landed who defined patience as “the positive energy required daily during a 17 month transition period.” Patience is doing for others as a PSG Committee member despite you yourself needing to find a job yesterday."

"Planning your time should include active networking. Persistent and effective networking is important because you never know who the person you are networking with knows. It is like an adult game of whisper-down-the-lane. PSG has experienced a growing history of happy coincidences where spontaneous networking conversations developed a contact that led to an interview that culminated in a hire. The Karma part is the ebb and flow of relationships evolved from networking. PSG members are constantly surprised by who steps up to help them land at the bleakest moment."

"Another concept surfacing in the market is 'relationship recruiting.' Sounds like a cousin to networking, but let me explain. Say you interview with an employer but it does not work. There is no fit, you are not a match for their corporate culture or otherwise it is not going to happen with that company. To keep the corporate contact, you of course thank the company for spending time to meet you and that you greatly enjoyed learning about them. The extra step is connecting them with a candidate from your networking pool. The employer might appreciate the gesture. Perhaps they might be inclined to return the favor by connecting you with others in the same professional network. The maximum response would be if they referred you to other hiring managers as future unadvertised positions open up."

"Whether you call it Karma or making your own good luck, positive things will happen when you get out of the house, get active and help somebody every once in awhile. If you do it now, do it more.

If you do not do it, get out and try it."

Good stuff, universal appeal, endless uses in anyone's daily life, employed or unemployed. I've seen it work in my life and it's hard to deny the power of karma. But Carig Jez said it better. He always does.

A Rick Nichols Story (sort of)

On the eve of his final official column for the Philadelphia Inquirer, I offer this warm memory of his Inquirer Magazine column, and its incredible impact.

I was the Public Relations Director for The Bellevue at the time, and had spent a considerable amount of my efforts promoting the landmark's Downstairs at The Bellevue food court, which at the time had an incredible collection of food vendors producing some really terrific food. After a year of flashy newsletters, press releases, e-mail blasts and promotions of every stripe (elaborate sand sculptures in the summer, a soup naming competition, naked hoagies--don't ask--rush-hour takeout, and more), I heard from one of the vendors that Rick Nichols had been poking around and asking questions of almost everyone there, eatinge and taking food back to his office. For his part, Nichols was non-commital and cryptic in his e-mail responses to my queries. Then I heard that an Inquirer photographer was shooting dishes from various vendors downstairs, always a good sign. Nichols was still mum on what he would write about.

Then one Sunday I opened my Inquirer and there on the last page of the Inquirer Magazine was his article, a generous and glowing profile of almost all of the food vendors in the food court, complete with mouth-watering descriptions of pastas, hoagies, tortas and soups, even the deli sandwiches from Bain's.

The following day I was in my office at The Bellevue when property manager Andy Speizman poked his head into my doorway and asked me to help him out with some crowd control issue in the food court. It was 11:30 in the morning, and I wasn't thinking about lunch or even Nichols' article at the time. When we arrived in the lobby, Andy and I were greeted by a flood of humanity pouring into the main doors of the building and down the escalator and stairwell to the Food Court. Neither of us were aware of any large conventions in town at the time, and crowds of this size were very rare at The Bellevue. Then we noticed it. People clutching copies of the Inquirer Magazine.

I'll never doubt the influence of a popular--and compelling--food writer ever again. Thanks, Rick, you made my year, and great memory in my career.

Giant Shoes.......

Uploaded by Six Stair on March 10, 2009
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Impossibly sad news via Michael Klein's INSIDER blog today that veteran food columnist Rick Nichols is leaving the Philadelphia Inquirer. According to Klein, Nichols will be teaching journalism at Penn, contributing occasional pieces to the Inky, and spending more time with his wife, Nancy.

Like the late beer writer Michael Jackson, Rick Nichols has always been able to find that one detail no one else notices and craft a point of view around it with brilliant, compelling writing. Truly compelling food writing is a dying art, and Rick is one of its finest practitioners. It is an understatement that he will be missed.