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December 01, 2008

National Geographic

Finally, I'm up to the last day of our 8-day whirlwind of a trip (of course I'm a month late posting this - sorry PBS!). For our interview that day, Sarah, Nicole, and I headed to Washington DC to interview Chris Johns, Editor-in-Chief of National Geographic. How did we get this interview? We just asked (and got very, very lucky).

When we first arrived at National Geographic, we were all completely blown away. Every wall was covered in enormous, beautiful photographs from around the world. As an aspiring photographer myself, I was in heaven. We first met with Beth, the director of communications, and she gave us a tour of the National Geographic Society buildings (it's not just a magazine, it's a society). It hardly even felt like an office building where people have jobs, it was much more like a museum or an art gallery. We filmed a lot of what we saw inside, so for all of you photo-junkies out there, make sure you watch our show this winter.

Finally, after completing our tour, Beth took us up to the Executive Floor where Chris Johns' office is. When we walked in, none of us could believe that we were standing in someone's personal office. It's on the corner with two big walls of windows overlooking Washington DC and two more walls covered in art and artifacts from Chris' many travels (I'm not sure if we're officially on a first-name basis or not, but I'm going for it anyway). We all sat down on the couches and got some "off the record" information about upcoming magazine articles. I'm not allowed to reveal any specifics, but Chris has a map on his wall that opens up as two secret doors, revealing every single story for every single issue of National Geographic all the way up until the end of 2010. Don't you wish you had a wall-sized map of the world that was actually a set of secret doors? Maybe I should put that in my resume as a requirement for all future positions I might interview for - Must have secret doors and/or compartments in office.

After chatting in his office for a while, Chris took us down to the layout room where every page of the upcoming issue of National Geographic is tacked up on the wall because he thought this would make a good background for our interview. Chris had a really interesting story to tell about how he came to be where he is today. He started out as a field photographer for National Geographic and worked his way up to Editor-in-Chief. I don't want to spoil the interview, which hasn't aired yet, so I won't say any more, but I'm definitely excited for everyone to see it once the show is ready.

After our interview, we got another mini-tour to meet some other employees from the magazine. As we walked around the office, I snapped a couple photos, none of which are any good... but I'll post them anyway:

On this tour, we got to meet one of the people in charge of making all the maps you see in the magazine, and another person who draws all the diagrams and illustrations. It really made me stop and think about how much work goes into every single issue. Maybe that's why nobody throws National Geographic away!

Finally, before I go, I wanted to post my two Washington DC pictures. Yes, I want to be a photographer and I managed to take only two blurry, dark photos in one of the most architecturally interesting cities in the United States:

I think we were all a little tired, because we were really entertained by the G-Unit street sign:

Anyway, we actually had one more interview in NYC with Deb from Smitten Kitchen and I'll be posting about that soon!

-Lauren

Posted by lauren at December 1, 2008 02:11 PM

Comments

Posted by: M at December 1, 2008 03:40 PM