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Erik: What’s the greatest difference being and editor verses being a writer?
Mark: Well, as a writer you’re sort of focused on yourself and the work that you do, whereas
the role that I serve in as a senior editor at VH1 is a little bit more advisory in capacity.
I’ve got a little bit more of the editorial big picture division in mind in how we go.
It’s less about how I do as a writer working on this one particular story and dubbing to
the next one. It’s a little more about broader, like ‘how are we covering the day’s news?
How are we covering the week’s news? How are we covering the month’s news?’ You
know sort of the big trends and helping develop a little more of an ongoing narrative with
certain stories, whereas when I was writing I was a little bit more on a particular beat.
I would cover certain stories and follow those through as they developed, whereas this is
a little bit wider and I can help us develop multiple story lines across multiple sites
with multiple interest ranges. We’ve got a celebrity gossip slash pretty pictures or
pretty peoples kind of site, we’ve got a humor and comedy site, and we’ve got a site
dedicated toward the programming that’s on our network. So, I get to work on all of
those things rather than just covering, say like, television and the late night wars.
I get to work on all of those different areas, which really suits my personal interests and
what I like – I like a broad swathe of things, and that’s been really satisfying being
able work on all of those different areas.