This week I sat down with Interview Magazine journalist and assistant to the editor-in-chief, Fan Zhong, 23, to talk about what it takes to make it as a young journalist and the importance of being pretty.
How do you come up with your story ideas?
You get a bunch of press releases and you’re like okay, this show is opening, that’s interesting, and this artist hasn’t been featured for a while. If you’re going to put it in print you have to get it a good 3 months ahead of time.
And you get these press releases that early?
No that’s why I have to hound gallerists ahead of time. I literally have been perusing the guy from the Biennale for two weeks calling him every day, “Do you have any artists?” You have to be really on top of it.
What kind of stories do you pitch for print?
For me, because I’m so low on the totem pole I have to pitch something that nobody has ever heard of. Otherwise they’ll be like “oh, well, that’s great but we already have that lined up." It feels really good when an idea sticks because it happens so rarely.
How do you find such obscure pieces?
You have to follow your particular, weird little interests to their very horizons. I’ve been into some really weird literary zines lately. I was online looking through literary blogs and I came across this literary zine called Five Dials and found all of these great writers who were on this little pdf email. So I called Five Dials and found out they were under the big Penguin umbrella. It helps that the editor is really young and good looking. It always helps to be good looking.
How do you make yourself a vital part of the magazine?
You kind of just have to be really on top of your shit. They give you a lot of things to do during the day and you kind of just have to do it all and do it very capably and quickly as possible. You’re going to fuck up but you just have to limit those mistakes to the non garish ones.
What’s the worst part about your job?
Everybody is there for 10 hours a day at least, unless we’re closing an issue in which case it’s longer. Staring at your computer for 10 hours a day is not fun.
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