Michael Wolff remembers his first time walking into the "depressing, smoke-filled" newsroom after he was hired—and knowing it wasn't a place where he wanted to work.<br /><br />Question: What was your first job at the New York Times like? Michael <br /> Wolff: Well it was the only job I ever wanted to have, I wanted to <br />work for the New York Times and that seemed to me the zenith of anything <br /> that you could accomplish and so I was quite pleased to have gotten <br />this job. Now, oddly for the zenith of all things to accomplish, I sent <br />them a letter and said I'd like a job and 24 hours later I got a phone <br />call from them and they said, "When can you start?" So life was <br />different at that point in time. But I just felt on top of the world <br />when I got this job and I arrived there and within 10 minutes I knew <br />that this was all wrong. I had miscalculated everything. I never <br />experienced a more depressing place, and I can remember it still vividly <br /> of gray filled with smoke up and row upon row of editors all seemingly <br />with facial tics. And I thought, not only if this is not for me but if <br />this is life I knew I was not going to make it. Question: <br /> Did you learn anything there? Michael Wolff: You <br />know, I'm struggling now to remember. What could I have possibly learned <br /> except the really most important thing, which is that I did not want to <br /> work at the New York Times? Beyond that, I learned how a newspaper <br />works. I learned that a whole set of skills which have not been the <br />least useful in my professional life. Question: How <br />did your story on Patty Hearst jumpstart your career? Michael <br /> Wolff: Reaching back. I was working at the New York Times ruing <br />every second of my life, thinking how was I ever going to get out of <br />here, and thinking that one could only do it the way newspaper people <br />have always done it. I needed a scoop and I would go out and I would <br />dream upon coming upon fires or the sky falling in front of me or <br />anything. And lo and behold, one day my mother called me; my mother was a <br /> newspaper reporter herself, and she said, "Did you see the news?" I <br />said, "I probably had but what did she have in mind." And she said <br />Angela DeAngeles, who was a girl who grew up with me in my hometown of <br />7,000 people in New Jersey kidnapped Patty Hurst. "She's the girl who <br />kidnapped Patty Hearst," my mother said. And I said "Whoa!" and my <br />mother said, "This is your article!" which had not crossed my mind. And I <br /> kind of just stopped and I thought, "My God, maybe it is." The newsroom <br /> at that time at the New York Times was on the 3rd floor and I ran up to <br /> where the magazine was, the New York Times Magazine, which was, if I <br />remember correctly, the 9th floor. I knew one of the editors there and I <br /> went and I was very young; I was 19 years old actually. I quickly told <br />him this story and he said, "Okay. We'll commission it." And <br />that was it. And I wrote this story; it actually turned out to be a very <br /> successful story and I sold the movie rights and it gave me actually <br />the wherewithal to leave the Times and become a freelance magazine <br />writer, which I seem to have been ever since.Recorded on May 19, 2010Interviewed by Jessica Liebman
