Inspiring and Successful Women: Lori Fradkin

It’s day two of my ‘Inspiring and Successful Women’ series, and I’m so excited to welcome Lori Fradkin, Executive Features Editor of Cosmopolitan.com, to FPTP today. Fradkin has a job so many girls would dream of, and she has worked incredibly hard in her career to get to where she is today. Let’s dive in to our interview. Enjoy!

Fradkin in the Hearst Tower

Did you always know you wanted to be a writer/editor? I don’t know about always, but I don’t remember ever having another plan. I’ve always liked writing, I worked on my high school newspaper, and I realized in college I liked editing a lot too. (I’ve also always liked reading, which is definitely related.) I got my bachelor’s degree and master’s degree in journalism, and aside from the summer before college when I worked at Victoria’s Secret, I’ve always had journalism jobs or internships. I moved to New York after graduation because I wanted to go into the magazine industry. I’ve since moved into digital (which is where I plan to stay).

What were your jobs prior to Executive Features Editor at Cosmopolitan.com? I started as a freelance copy editor at New York Magazine. I did that for about a year, and when New York Magazine started expanding its website, I moved over to the digital side and became a full-time copy editor. I edited all of the sites’ blogs — Daily Intel, the Cut, Vulture, and Grub Street — in addition to any other web-only content. After a few years there, I moved to AOL where I was an editor for the homepage, which meant working with editors of various sections and figuring out what to run on AOL.com and how to promote it. I was there when AOL bought the Huffington Post, and about a year after the merger, I made an internal move to be the senior lifestyle editor at HuffPost. I just started at Cosmopolitan.com in December 2013, and it’s been fantastic so far.

What is your typical day like? I get up in the morning and immediately check email. Then I read and listen to the news as I’m getting ready for work. Sometimes I’ll do a little editing from home before going to the office. I usually get to the office between 9 and 10, and then I just edit and look for news all day with occasional meetings in between. Sometimes I’m editing longer pieces. Sometimes it’s just quick news write-ups. I look at Twitter all day, and my coworkers and I are in a group chat to share stories we just published or discuss other topics (in addition to sharing other interesting articles and funny GIFs and having random conversations). I usually leave the office around 7, though I’m usually still keeping an eye on things.

Fradkin in the new Cosmopolitan.com office

What is the most challenging thing about your job? Putting away my phone. When you work in digital media, particularly in news, there’s always more you can do, something else you can look up, stats you can check, emails you can respond to. One of the things I love about my job is that it keeps me on top of what’s going on in the world, but I also have to remind myself to take a break so (a) I don’t burn out and (b) I can actually think about larger ideas. A lot of great ideas come from conversations you have and from observations of the world around you, and neither of those things can happen if you’re buried in your phone all the time. Also, I always want to check everything off my to-do list, and I have to remember that sometimes things can wait until the next morning or, if it’s a weekend, until Monday.

What is the most rewarding thing about your job? The response from readers. I love working in digital because you get instant feedback. You can see what readers are saying in the comments and what they’re sharing on social media. I try not to plan editorial based exclusively on the feedback, as I think it’s always worth testing new topics or rubrics, but it is a good gauge for what the readers are excited about. I also feel like I learn a lot just from doing my job. When I started at Cosmo, I followed politics a lot more casually than I do now. Now I follow politics a lot more closely because I edit most of that content for the site. It’s really nice to feel informed and to be able to engage intelligently in conversations that I might have shied away from before, and the more I know about a topic, the more I want to know about it and the more accessible it becomes.

What is your advice for someone who wants to break into the field of journalism? Read a lot. And when you pitch editors with story ideas, don’t just pitch a topic. Tell the editor exactly what you want to write, who you want to interview (if it’s a reported piece), and why it will appeal to his or her publication’s readers. Also, be familiar with the publication before you pitch so you don’t propose an idea for something that just ran or something that’s completely off.

Fradkin in the Hearst Tower

Where do you find inspiration for articles? Sometimes I read articles elsewhere or watch the news, and something jumps out at me as a topic we should look into to cover in a more in-depth way. Often, I get ideas from conversations I have with co-workers, friends, and family. If a topic is interesting enough for a sustained conversation, it’s often worth asking if there’s something more to it, something our readers might relate to.

Who are your 3 favorite people to follow on Twitter? Lena Dunham (@lenadunham), Mindy Kaling (@mindykaling), and Jill Filipovic (@jillfilipovic). Jill is Cosmopolitan.com’s senior political writer — I’m her editor — and she’s always sharing interesting articles with insightful commentary. Plus, she’s really funny.

The best advice you’ve ever received (and who did the advice come from)? The best advice I’ve ever received came from my friend Melissa. She once told me that things generally work out, even if it’s not in the exact way you expected or hoped, and we’re pretty good at adapting to situations. I tend to get nervous when I don’t know exactly how something will play out, and she reminded me that we figure things out.

Thanks, Lori!

Be sure to follow @LoriFradkin along on Twitter, too.

Photos c/o Lori Fradkin, Photography by Kathleen Kamphausen