Jim Michaels in person is an imposing guy — more fully endowed with intellect, talent and leadership ability than most mortals. Keeping the adjectives to a minimum, let’s just say he’s more incisive and articulate than anyone you are ever apt to encounter. He had a clear sense of Forbes’ journalistic mission from the start, and has pursued it consistently for three decades — varying only the ways and means of executing it, as a great editor must, in order to keep his readers coming back for more.
In dealing with his people, Jim is kind, gentle, even funny one moment, but he can be scathing and impatient the next. Whichever man you encounter, it is the real Michaels. There is not a phony or pretentious bone in his body. He does, however, know exactly how to motivate each of his key people — whom to pressure, whom to cajole, whom to keep guessing.
Many prominent magazine editors become policy setters and corporate gladhanders. They go to board meetings, do talk shows, and make commercials. Not Michaels. In the 1990s he may spend more days at his county place in the Hudson Valley, but from there he still cranks up his modem and manhandles writers’ copy — stunning them, as ever, with how easily he can chop a story in half and make it sing. Like him or not, every writer who’s worked for Jim Michaels will swear that he’s the greatest editor who ever tore a story apart. Front line generals like that get troops to follow them into battle.
Photo: Jim Michaels, center, with his wife Jean Briggs and veteran Forbes columnist Jerry Flint.
© 2000 TJFR Group. All rights reserved.
In dealing with his people, Jim is kind, gentle, even funny one moment, but he can be scathing and impatient the next. Whichever man you encounter, it is the real Michaels. There is not a phony or pretentious bone in his body. He does, however, know exactly how to motivate each of his key people — whom to pressure, whom to cajole, whom to keep guessing. Many prominent magazine editors become policy setters and corporate gladhanders. They go to board meetings, do talk shows, and make commercials. Not Michaels. In the 1990s he may spend more days at his county place in the Hudson Valley, but from there he still cranks up his modem and manhandles writers’ copy — stunning them, as ever, with how easily he can chop a story in half and make it sing. Like him or not, every writer who’s worked for Jim Michaels will swear that he’s the greatest editor who ever tore a story apart. Front line generals like that get troops to follow them into battle.
Photo: Jim Michaels, center, with his wife Jean Briggs and veteran Forbes columnist Jerry Flint.
© 2000 TJFR Group. All rights reserved.
Continue reading "A Tribute to Forbes’ Jim Michaels: Editor for All Seasons" »
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