Skateboard blogger to executive editor
Mike Munzenrider tells his journey of pursuing journalism after dropping out of college
Mike Munzenrider found a knack for journalism when, after dropping out of college at the University of Minnesota, he started to write his own blog for a skateboarding magazine. Through this magazine, he found an appreciation for journalism and went back to the University to make it his major. After graduating, he did freelance work and interned at a community newspaper.
Now, Munzenrider has worked for Lillie News for the past 5 ½ years as a staff writer and executive editor.
Q: What are your responsibilities as an editor? What is a typical workday like for you?
A: I am an editor as well as a reporter, so the duties are split along those lines. With our newsroom I am managing, answering a lot of questions from other reporters in terms of “should I do this?” or “does this make sense?” There’s that management aspect, and there is a lot of straight-up editing.
We are on a weekly production cycle, but there will be breaking news that we will want to get up on our website prior to putting it in a newspaper, so I will edit that. That will be a lot of line editing — grammar, the easy stuff. There is also trying to make sure that all the facts within a story that is reported fit together.
Early in the week on a Monday, I have more flexibility, and that’s the early reporting and figuring out stories I’m going to do. By the end of the week, we’re putting out newspapers, so on Thursday mornings I know I’m going in the office, and I’ll do three hours of editing.
Q: What are the good things and bad things about being an editor? What do you like about being an editor and what challenges do you face?
A: It’s straight-up fun to read, write and be involved. It’s an enriching thing to do because it challenges you creatively in just knowing your stuff, even down to Associated Press style. It can also be a whale of a job. Sometimes you have to put a lot of work into a story and it’s challenging. I’m shepherding newspapers out the door and it can be stressful, but I actually enjoy that aspect where you’re racing against the clock.
One of the biggest challenges can just be making sure everything lines up. The juggling, management aspect is probably the most challenging part.
Q: What are some memorable anecdotes in your time as an editor?
A: We had the Philando Castile verdict for the officer, who was found not guilty of criminal wrongdoing. That came out as we were basically putting the newspaper to bed for the week. Half of the people had gone home. Someone texted me that the verdict came out so we said OK, how much time do we have, what can I get together. I had been covering this story for a long time, so I went back to my desk, wrote up something, and streamed the MPR news press conference, dropped in quotes, made space in the paper, and put a 200- to 300-word story in, knowing that we’d then circle back next week and do the long treatment of it. The breaking news stands out.
It’s funny. We’ll write 3–5 stories a week and then I’ll edit, get into the next week’s, start planning it, and you forget what you did the past week. Across the newsroom that’s the story.
At Flaherty’s bowling, an old lady, like 90 something, was a part of a bowling league. She invited me to cover it. It wasn’t the biggest story in the world, but it was fun to just go out and try to take something that mattered to people that isn’t exactly the most newsworthy thing but turn it into a story. That’s a part of the community news that we do. It’s the smaller stories that give it the equal space with the other hard news. I was proud of taking something small and making it into something.
Q: What has been the career path for you?
A: I have been a skateboarder for a long time. I started a skateboard blog 16 or 17 years ago, and prior to that I flamed out of college because I didn’t know what to do. By way of the skateboard blog, I got into writing for a skateboard magazine. That got me to go back to the U of M, and go through journalism school. At the U, I signed up for a class that I knew would place me in an internship. They placed me at an internship with a community newspaper out of downtown Minneapolis, and that was the first time I did any newspaper stuff. From there, to end up at Lillie News; after I graduated, I floated around and a woman I went to school with was working at Lillie, and there was a job opening. She said I should try it, and I’ve been there 5 ½ years now.
I came on as a staff writer and then stepped in to some editing duties because I was able to do it and help out. A year after I got there, I was made a news editor and then I became the executive editor 2 years ago.
Q: What advice would you give to students who are interested in becoming an editor?
A: It’s all about reading and writing and trying to read a variety of things. Read literature, read newspapers, read magazines. Write as much as possible; you just gotta do it to move in that direction.
One thing that really helped my writing and thinking about language was taking Spanish in college. I never really paid attention in English class to break down anything about the sentence and how things really functioned. Taking Spanish really helped me to understand the imperfect tense and odd things that you don’t get to in English because it’s intuitive.
Q: Can you tell me a story that has happened in your editing career?
A: Sometimes we get stuff wrong, and that happened recently. You can put out a story where it comes down to looking on the map to make sure you’re in the right city or where you think you are. I edited a story for one of our reporters, and the whole thing was framed around it taking place in Maplewood. But if you look at the map, it’s actually 2 blocks into St. Paul.
Your errors stick with you until you get a new one. One of my most recent errors is when I was doing a short story on Betty McCollum and I called her Betsy McCollum. When you’ve got a Congressperson, they have their google alerts so that the second that hit our website, their person was on the phone with me.
Q: What are your plans for the future?
A: I want to keep doing this, but the business is tough. Being able to communicate as a writer, I don’t think that will go away. Helping other folks be able to communicate clearly, as an editor, that’s not going away. One way or another, I’ll use this.
For Munzenrider, whether it is editing, writing stories for a small community newspaper or working for a larger media company, telling stories is an invigorating experience.
