Anyone who writes articles on the web knows the maxim: “Don’t read the comments.” Fortunately for Yoni Appelbaum, a recent Ph.D. in history from Brandeis University, the well-known writer Ta-Nehisi Coates routinely ignores that rule.
A few years ago, while Appelbaum was supposed to be writing his dissertation, he spent far too much time participating in the lively comment section moderated by Coates at The Atlantic. Coates featured some of Appelbaum’s comments, then invited him to write essays. Appelbaum soon became a correspondent for the magazine. In January, he was announced as the new senior editor for politics.
There’s something perfect about Appelbaum becoming the political editor for a magazine with its origins in mid-19th-century political culture. His academic work examines associative republicanism from 1865 to 1900, which he puns as the “guilded age,” arguing for the centrality of groups like the Knights of Pythias, Chicago Lumber Exchange, Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, and more. He brought that expertise in U.S. history, race, voluntary association, and related topics to the highly informed, and well-moderated, community of Coates’s readers.
I read through many of Appelbaum’s more than 1,000 comments on the site. My favorite is a lone comment he made on eating turkey testicles, based on a 1942 edition of Everybody’s Poultry Magazine. But he made many more substantive contributions to the magazine’s threads. Some comments are really mini-essays—for example, on the development of Hanukkah, on the culture of poverty, on lots of sports, and of course on U.S. history and politics. I especially liked his comment on former Mayor Bloomberg’s ban on big soda drinks in New York, in which Appelbaum discusses the pleasure of making bad choices. One bad choice in which he took great pleasure, he notes, was participating in blog discussion groups instead of working on his dissertation.
For Appelbaum, the comment threads seemed to function as a transitional space. He was learning to take his historian’s knowledge and apply it to public conversation with a diverse, if generally well-educated, audience. He frequently brought in outside material, combining his skill at academic research with a journalist’s love of the pull quote. Judging by the replies he received, as well as by the number of upvotes he attracted along with Coates’s support, bringing in specialist knowledge had real value.
His career trajectory at The Atlantic—from comment section to masthead—is unlikely, but Appelbaum’s ascent indicates that engaged academics can find an audience. Now he’s ready to invite other scholars to try to find their public voice. While attending the American Historical Association’s annual conference, Appelbaum tweeted, “If you’re a historian who’d like to share scholarly work with a general audience? Track me down at #AHA2015—I’d love to help you do that.”
I write about public engagement for The Chronicle, so was excited to see this new opportunity for academics to get their work out to a broader audience. I exchanged emails with Appelbaum about his pathway from academe to journalism, what he’s learned in both realms, and what he’s looking for as an editor.
A lot of people see connections between their scholarship and their public writing. The core activity—assembling information and then making an argument in prose—is roughly the same in both areas. I was curious whether Appelbaum had also found links between his years as a teacher and his new role, especially as I’ve argued in Vitae that teaching is a core skill for public engagement.
For Appelbaum, the key in both roles was to think about audience as much as content. In an email to me, he wrote, “As a teacher, I learned to think less about what I wanted to say, and more about how my audience would receive it. I knew I needed to earn the attention of my students, and to frame content in ways they would find compelling.” He’s also spent endless hours trying to help students improve as writers, a skill he will need as an editor.
His new position is officially “politics,” but Appelbaum plans to define that expansively and is open to pitches from scholars working on diverse topics. He noted that the founders of the magazine wrote, “In Politics, The Atlantic will be the organ of no party or clique, but will honestly endeavor to be the exponent of what its conductors believe to be the American idea.” Of course, the American idea itself is contested ground. Exploring those contests, he said, is fertile territory for future essays: “I’ll be looking for conventional political reportage, but also for essays that are political only in the broadest and most profound sense, by speaking to the key issues of our time. Sometimes, those pieces will be grounded in the American past, or will draw on the experiences of other peoples at other times and places to elucidate concerns that resonate with contemporary audiences. Many scholars believe that their work speaks to such issues. I would love to hear from them.”
So how should you, as an aspiring Atlantic essayist, approach Appelbaum?
The first step is learning how to “pitch.” Most editors prefer to receive well-crafted pitches first, rather than full essays. Most academics, I’ve noticed, want to ground themselves in lengthy prose before sharing their ideas. The latter makes sense in the world of footnotes and peer review, but editors generally like to work with writers, vet their approaches, offer cautions or suggestions, and establish a relationship before the full draft appears in their inbox.
“Short pitches are best,” Appelbaum said. “Show me that you have a clear, concise idea of what makes your proposed essay compelling. Explain how you know what you claim to know. If you’ve written for other outlets, say so. If not, that’s fine, too. Don’t worry about making it too short. Editors can always ask for more. I’m a sucker for evidence. Arguments and opinions are comparatively abundant. But if you’ve got new, interesting information to share with an audience? Readers love that.”
As Appelbaum steps away from a good three-year faculty position at Harvard University and his dreams of a tenure-track job (he had just made his first campus visit for a tenure-track position when The Atlantic called), he’s ready for a new set of challenges.
He also hopes his experience, with all its idiosyncrasies, will encourage other academics to think more about public engagement.
“When you put your writing and research out in public,” he said, “it gets read, and that can lead to entirely unexpected opportunities.”
