Samantha Henig – Associate Editor, Newsweek.com
2/25/2010
By Sarah Hetland
Just four years out of college and Samantha Henig, the newly appointed associate editor for Newsweek.com, has already proved to be a leader and innovator in the media industry.
Henig joined the Web staff of Newsweek in January 2010 and oversees the recently launched online feature We Read It [So You Don’t Have To] in the culture section.
“We give a quick graphically presented rundown of a hot, new, non-fiction book that maybe you heard about and want to follow the conversation about, but you don’t have time to actually read it,” she explained. The feature will be released in an e-newsletter format at the end of March.
The young editor is thrilled to be a part of keeping the Web site and news outlet relevant and competitive, especially at a time when social networking plays a pivotal role in news.
“I think that – as all publications are – we’re getting better at thinking of, when we have an idea, not just how we put it on the Web site but also how do we put it out on Facebook and Twitter. And what kind of [applications] should go with this, what kind of newsletters. All of that is stuff we are constantly thinking about and improving.”
Henig’s passion for journalism began early while working on her high school newspaper and continued into college. Though she majored in sociology, she was still very involved in journalism. While attending Cornell University, she and a friend founded the magazine Kitsch, because they felt the campus lacked journalistic opportunities.
“Because there wasn’t a forum for feature journalism on campus, we thought there should be,” she said. “And because we were starting it from scratch that took up a lot of my time, so I felt like I was very involved in journalism the whole time.”
And that innovative spirit didn’t wane. Henig later went on to head up Current, a magazine produced by Newsweek which targeted college students. Most recently, she was part of the team that launched DoubleX, a women’s Web magazine spin-off from Slate.
With Web journalism as the future, Henig has found herself drawn to online opportunities.
“Since there’s so much more room, flexibility and opportunity online, it seemed like the place that made sense to concentrate,” she said. “I feel like I’ve always been very form ambivalent. I think that’s true of a lot of the people in my generation; that it really doesn’t matter to us whether our stuff is running in print or online.”
She also said one of the aspects she loved most while working at DoubleX, and something she got a taste for while running Kitsch and Current, was the broad scope of production opportunities. She was able to get her hands in the social media outreach and work with the art teams, going beyond just writing and editing.
“When I was looking around for my next job, I found myself turned off by straight writing or blogging positions, because that felt too narrow to me. I love writing and editing, but there’s so much more to journalism these days, and I wanted to explore all of those parts of the puzzle.”
This need for exploration is what led her back to Newsweek, a history that actually started in 2007 with an intern position in the Boston bureau shortly after college. She also worked as a writer and reporter for their Periscope section (now called Scope) after Current folded, and they decided to bring her on staff. It was from there that she moved on to join Slate, writing for the Explainer column and even dipping into multimedia with podcasting. She has also contributed to the Boston Globe, Columbia Journalism Review and the Chronicle of Higher Education.
Henig said her time with Slate and DoubleX really stuck with her and she feels grateful to bring that experience to Newsweek, a magazine she deeply respects.
“It was interesting to be at Slate, which has this image of being a very media savvy, ahead-of-the- curve Web magazine,” she said. “To be able to take what I learned there and come back to this older, primarily print magazine and be part of the group that’s figuring out how to make it all work on the Web - that seemed really exciting to me.”
Pitching Tips
Henig’s current focus is gathering information for the We Read It [So You Don’t Have To] feature.
“Right now the thing I’m mostly looking for is what non-fiction books are coming up that we might want to cover. We’re interested in really ‘buzzy’ non-fiction books, primarily political or science. So anything that’s sort of creating a stir or generating a conversation,” she said.
She also accepts biographical books, but explained they need to be relevant or have a current news element to it.
The We Read It feature profiles about three books a week. She said they might expand to four, but due to its design-heavy nature, it could be difficult to do any more.
Henig emphasized that she looks for short and to-the-point pitches with relevant information. Avoid sending her pitches about music, for example, as she has no reason to cover this topic. She also noted the importance of editing and proofing the pitches before sending them over. Grammatical errors, especially blatant ones, can turn her off to a pitch.
Henig prefers to receive pitches via e-mail as it helps her digest the information on her timetable. Keep in mind that she dislikes receiving an e-mail which is immediately followed by a phone call without any time to read the e-mail. Unless approved by her, she’d like to avoid all phone follow ups.