Kit Rachlis
Encyclopedia
Kit Rachlis is an American journalist and editor who has held top posts at The Village Voice
, LA Weekly
, Los Angeles Times
, and Los Angeles
magazine. In April 2011, he became editor of The American Prospect
magazine, a leading liberal political monthly based in Washington, D.C. Rachlis is best known as a practitioner of the long-form nonfiction narrative, a literary tradition that has been dubbed "an endangered species" as newspapers and magazines have struggled to adapt to the digital age.
in Concord, Massachusetts, and earned a B.A. in American studies from Yale
in 1975.
that included 1970s works by Bob Dylan, Blondie, The Cars, and Tom Waits. His critique of Neil Young was included in Greil Marcus
's Stranded: Rock and Roll for a Desert Island. From 1977 to 1984, Rachlis was music editor and arts editor of the alternative weekly Boston Phoenix, then went on to serve as executive editor of The Village Voice until 1988.
, Steve Erickson
, and Tom Carson, would become some of the city’s most sophisticated cultural and political voices.
Although he was widely credited with professionalizing the paper and cementing its journalistic credibility, some colleagues felt that Rachlis's sensibilities were too mainstream for the rambunctious alt-weekly universe. Former columnist Marc Cooper
would later write that under Rachlis the Weekly became "more slick, professional, better-edited but flatter, less willing to gamble and risk."
In 1993, Rachlis was fired in a power struggle with publisher Michael Sigman. At least half a dozen Rachlis loyalists resigned in protest, including Michael Ventura
, John Powers, Ruben Martinez
, and Ella Taylor
, as well as Carson and Erickson.
-winning feature about the community of Gee's Bend, Alabama, in 1999. When Moehringer later wrote his bestselling memoir The Tender Bar, he saluted Rachlis in the acknowledgments as "The Master." Rachlis also worked closely with national correspondent Barry Siegel
, a future Pulitzer winner who would later be named director of the literary journalism program at the University of California, Irvine
.
, which had just bought Los Angeles magazine for more than $30 million and was seeking an editor-an-chief with the literary credentials to reinvigorate what had become a notoriously fickle publication. The New York Times, noting that Rachlis was the fourth editor in five years, said the magazine had been through "more makeovers than Cher." Rather than rely on freelancers, Rachlis made it his first order of business to create a home on the payroll for staff writers, raiding the L.A. Times for veteran reporters Amy Wallace and Jesse Katz, and later adding Dave Gardetta and Steve Oney to the masthead. The magazine's newfound heft was evidenced by Wallace's 13,000-word profile of Variety
editor Peter Bart
in 2001, a story that accused Bart of boorish and unethical behavior, and that resulted in his suspension.
Although Rachlis would encounter critics on all sides—those who thought the magazine was still frothy and those who thought it had grown ponderous—he guided it to an unprecedented run of success, both critical and commercial. During his tenure, Los Angeles was a finalist for seven National Magazine Awards and earned more City and Regional Magazine Association awards, including 31 gold medals, than any other publication in the country. Numerous articles edited by Rachlis made their way to anthologies, including Best American Magazine Writing, Best American Crime Writing, Best American Sports Writing, and Best American Essays.
The crisis that began rocking the American economy in 2008 took a heavy toll on Los Angeles magazine, as it did most print media. After celebrating the most lucrative year in the magazine's history, Rachlis was suddenly forced to preside over successive rounds of layoffs and salary reductions. On May 15, 2009, he too was laid off, effective June 26. He expressed an interest in writing a book about cheese.
Rachlis is known to be a cheese
aficionado. He has volunteered at the Beverly Hills Cheese Shop and occasionally served as a judge in local cheese competitions.
The Village Voice
The Village Voice is a free weekly newspaper and news and features website in New York City that features investigative articles, analysis of current affairs and culture, arts and music coverage, and events listings for New York City...
, LA Weekly
LA Weekly
LA Weekly is a free weekly tabloid-sized "alternative weekly" in Los Angeles, California. It was founded in 1978 by Editor/Publisher Jay Levin and a board of directors that included actor-producer Michael Douglas...
, Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
, and Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
magazine. In April 2011, he became editor of The American Prospect
The American Prospect
The American Prospect is a monthly American political magazine dedicated to American liberalism. Based in Washington, DC, The American Prospect is a journal "of liberal ideas, committed to a just society, an enriched democracy, and effective liberal politics" which focuses on United States politics...
magazine, a leading liberal political monthly based in Washington, D.C. Rachlis is best known as a practitioner of the long-form nonfiction narrative, a literary tradition that has been dubbed "an endangered species" as newspapers and magazines have struggled to adapt to the digital age.
Early life and family
Rachlis is the son of Eugene Rachlis, an author, book publisher, and magazine editor, and Mary Katherine (Mickey) Rachlis, an economics correspondent for the Journal of Commerce who wrote under the byline M.K. Sharp. He was born in Paris, France, where his father was serving as press attaché for the Marshall Plan, and raised in New York City. He attended Middlesex SchoolMiddlesex School
Middlesex School is an independent secondary school for grades 9 - 12 located in Concord, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1901 by a Roxbury Latin School alumnus, Frederick Winsor, who headed the school until 1937. Winsor set up a National Scholarship Program for the school, the first of its kind...
in Concord, Massachusetts, and earned a B.A. in American studies from Yale
YALE
RapidMiner, formerly YALE , is an environment for machine learning, data mining, text mining, predictive analytics, and business analytics. It is used for research, education, training, rapid prototyping, application development, and industrial applications...
in 1975.
Early career
Rachlis entered journalism as a pop music critic, reviewing albums for Rolling StoneRolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
that included 1970s works by Bob Dylan, Blondie, The Cars, and Tom Waits. His critique of Neil Young was included in Greil Marcus
Greil Marcus
Greil Marcus is an American author, music journalist and cultural critic. He is notable for producing scholarly and literary essays that place rock music in a much broader framework of culture and politics than is customary in pop music journalism.-Life and career:Marcus was born in San Francisco...
's Stranded: Rock and Roll for a Desert Island. From 1977 to 1984, Rachlis was music editor and arts editor of the alternative weekly Boston Phoenix, then went on to serve as executive editor of The Village Voice until 1988.
Career at LA Weekly
In 1988, Rachlis moved cross-country to become editor-in-chief of the fledgling and flamboyant LA Weekly. Under his direction it earned a reputation as a bastion of smart and stylish writing, and his hires, including Harold MeyersonHarold Meyerson
Harold Meyerson is an American journalist and opinion columnist. In 2009 The Atlantic Monthly named him one of "the most influential commentators in the nation" as part of their list "The Atlantic 50."...
, Steve Erickson
Steve Erickson
Stephen Michael Erickson is an American novelist, essayist and film critic. He is the recipient of the American Academy of Arts and Letters's Award in Literature and a fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation., and is considered an important representative of the Avantpop...
, and Tom Carson, would become some of the city’s most sophisticated cultural and political voices.
Although he was widely credited with professionalizing the paper and cementing its journalistic credibility, some colleagues felt that Rachlis's sensibilities were too mainstream for the rambunctious alt-weekly universe. Former columnist Marc Cooper
Marc Cooper
Marc Cooper is an American journalist, author, journalism professor and blogger. He is currently a contributing editor to The Nation. He wrote the popular "Dissonance" column for LA Weekly from 2001 until November 2008...
would later write that under Rachlis the Weekly became "more slick, professional, better-edited but flatter, less willing to gamble and risk."
In 1993, Rachlis was fired in a power struggle with publisher Michael Sigman. At least half a dozen Rachlis loyalists resigned in protest, including Michael Ventura
Michael Ventura
Michael Ventura is an American novelist, screenwriter, essayist, and cultural critic.-History:Michael Ventura commenced his career as a journalist at the Austin Sun, a counter-culture bi-weekly newspaper that published in the 1970s. Ventura is best known for his long-running column, "Letters at 3...
, John Powers, Ruben Martinez
Ruben Martinez
Ruben Martinez is a journalist, author, and musician. He is the son of Rubén Martínez, a Mexican American who worked as a lithographer, and Vilma Angulo, a Salvadoran psychologist...
, and Ella Taylor
Ella Taylor
Ella Taylor is a film critic who was a staff writer for the LA Weekly and Village Voice Media, writing film and book reviews, interviews, profiles, and cultural and political commentary from 1989 to 2009, when she and much of the staff were laid off....
, as well as Carson and Erickson.
Career at Los Angeles Times
Rachlis joined the L.A. Times in 1994, first as a senior editor at the paper's Sunday magazine, then as a senior projects editor with oversight of the "Literary Team," an elite stable of feature writers freed from the bonds of daily journalism. It was during this period that Rachlis's renown as a "writer's editor" took on legendary proportions, as he would use his position to grant reporters months or even a year to produce stories that routinely approached 10,000 words and occasionally exceeded 20,000. Rachlis had a hand in J.R. Moehringer's Pulitzer PrizePulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
-winning feature about the community of Gee's Bend, Alabama, in 1999. When Moehringer later wrote his bestselling memoir The Tender Bar, he saluted Rachlis in the acknowledgments as "The Master." Rachlis also worked closely with national correspondent Barry Siegel
Barry Siegel
Barry Siegel is a former national correspondent for the Los Angeles Times who won the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing in 2002 for his piece "A Father's Pain, a Judge's Duty, and a Justice Beyond Their Reach." In 2003, University of California, Irvine recruited Siegel to chair the school's new...
, a future Pulitzer winner who would later be named director of the literary journalism program at the University of California, Irvine
University of California, Irvine
The University of California, Irvine , founded in 1965, is one of the ten campuses of the University of California, located in Irvine, California, USA...
.
Career at Los Angeles magazine
Rachlis was lured away from the newspaper business in 2000 by media conglomerate Emmis CommunicationsEmmis Communications
Emmis Communications is a media conglomerate based in Indianapolis, Indiana. The company owns radio stations and magazines in the United States, Hungary, Slovakia and Bulgaria.-History:...
, which had just bought Los Angeles magazine for more than $30 million and was seeking an editor-an-chief with the literary credentials to reinvigorate what had become a notoriously fickle publication. The New York Times, noting that Rachlis was the fourth editor in five years, said the magazine had been through "more makeovers than Cher." Rather than rely on freelancers, Rachlis made it his first order of business to create a home on the payroll for staff writers, raiding the L.A. Times for veteran reporters Amy Wallace and Jesse Katz, and later adding Dave Gardetta and Steve Oney to the masthead. The magazine's newfound heft was evidenced by Wallace's 13,000-word profile of Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
editor Peter Bart
Peter Bart
Peter Benton Bart is an American journalist and film producer. He perhaps best known for his lengthy tenure as the editor of Variety, an entertainment-trade magazine....
in 2001, a story that accused Bart of boorish and unethical behavior, and that resulted in his suspension.
Although Rachlis would encounter critics on all sides—those who thought the magazine was still frothy and those who thought it had grown ponderous—he guided it to an unprecedented run of success, both critical and commercial. During his tenure, Los Angeles was a finalist for seven National Magazine Awards and earned more City and Regional Magazine Association awards, including 31 gold medals, than any other publication in the country. Numerous articles edited by Rachlis made their way to anthologies, including Best American Magazine Writing, Best American Crime Writing, Best American Sports Writing, and Best American Essays.
The crisis that began rocking the American economy in 2008 took a heavy toll on Los Angeles magazine, as it did most print media. After celebrating the most lucrative year in the magazine's history, Rachlis was suddenly forced to preside over successive rounds of layoffs and salary reductions. On May 15, 2009, he too was laid off, effective June 26. He expressed an interest in writing a book about cheese.
Personal
Rachlis lives in Washington, D.C. He is divorced from the writer and critic Ariel Swartley, with whom he has a grown daughter, Austen.Rachlis is known to be a cheese
Cheese
Cheese is a generic term for a diverse group of milk-based food products. Cheese is produced throughout the world in wide-ranging flavors, textures, and forms....
aficionado. He has volunteered at the Beverly Hills Cheese Shop and occasionally served as a judge in local cheese competitions.
External links
- Los Angeles magazine
- www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-onthemedia-20110625,0,239299.column