What the kids of Wired editor Nick Thompson think of his work

Nicholas Thompson

Wired magazine editor in chief Nicholas Thompson posted the following on LinkedIn:

7-year-old: “When you call people for your job, what are you doing?”

Me: “Well some of it is calling people I work with and some of it is reporting.”

7-year-old: “What’s reporting?”

Me: “It’s trying to figure out information and stories. You find out about something important and you try to figure out what really happened.”

9-year-old: “The room where it happened / the room where it happened.”

Me: “Exactly.”

9-year-old: “So you would have written about Alexander Hamilton sending money to Maria Reynolds?”

Me: “Well, that’s complicated.”

7-year-old: “And if you did, he would have been mad at you.”

Me: “Definitely.”

9-year-old: “Do people get mad at everyone who writes stories?”

Me: “A lot of them.”

7-year-old: “So when you’re done as editor of Wired, will we be the only people who like you?”

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.