Jada Yuan writes for New York Magazine, and lets us in on how to get a good story…even when ten billion – okay, not really, but close! – other reports are doing the same. You can follow her on Twitter; she goes by Jadabird.
Jada, Adrian Grenier, Danny Kass, Dingo and her friend Nina on “the most exciting day of my life” at an Oakley event when she got to snowboard with Kass. “Watching him in the Olympics was part of the reason I started snowboarding,” Jada said.
What were the last five magazines you purchased, and which one / for what reason did you most enjoy reading?
In my dreams, The Economist, The Atlantic, Esquire, Wired, Rolling Stone, Real Simple, VeloNews, Transworld Snowboarding, a variety of British music magazines, and all the cool ones with pretty pictures, like French Vogue and I-D. But then I’d be broke and buried under a pile of magazines. In reality, the last five magazines I bought were probably all Us Weeklys—mostly for Who Wore It Best, because it’s amazing so many celebrities choose to wear the same ugly dress, and Celebrities: They’re Just Like Us, because even if the celebrity has no makeup and is pumping gas, she’s still gaunt and driving a Mercedes and carrying an Hermès bag and is very much not like us. Blogs I read constantly, but I guess those don’t count. The New Yorker I subscribe to and GQ, Glamour, and New York (obviously) come to my office, so they don’t count either, though I read them all and clip out articles like a dork.
By what writer do you feel interested in reading an essay about food?
Bill Buford on Mario Batali, Susan Orlean on backyard chickens, and David Foster Wallace on the Maine Lobster Festival were all pretty memorable. But rapturous essays about food I’m not eating just make me jealous, for the same reason why watching Top Chef depresses me unless I’m cooking something delicious simultaneously, which becomes even more depressing since I can’t cook. I like reported pieces about the people who make food, or restaurant reviews so I can figure out if I want to go eat the food, which I always do.
Jada at the Democratic National Convention
What are some memorable moments you have had while reporting a piece for New York Magazine?
By far the best experience I’ve ever had reporting was going to the Democratic and Republican National Conventions and the Inauguration. I had to navigate three strange cities and a bunch of highly strange events on my own and get good stories that the ten billion other reporters also there weren’t doing. Turns out it wasn’t that different, reporting-wise, from landing in a party and accosting celebrities. I happened upon police tasering protesters in St. Paul, interviewed Rahm Emanuel and Barney Frank in a concert hall lobby, made buddies with The Daily Show guys, shared a terrifying and very funny car ride with Jill Abramson and Maureen Dowd of the Times, saw Sarah Palin transfix a room for the first time, and somehow managed to snag a first-row seat (as in, many, many rows in front of Jay-Z and Diddy and Beyoncé) to Obama’s Inaugural speech. And when the Inauguration was over, I randomly befriended Sonja Sohn (Shakima Gregg from The Wire) and she sweet-talked all the cops into letting us skip the barricades so we could get home faster and soak our frozen toes. It was awesome.
What person’s thoughts do you feel interested in knowing?
Bill Murray. The man goes into college kids’ rooms and does their dishes. It’s like his whole life is one broad experiment in messing with people’s heads. I’ve interviewed him at least three times and I always feel like he’s cool and then suddenly he’s done with me. I’d like to know the exact moment I piss him off.
Jada and Snoop, the third time she met him! ”The first time was the infamous pot smoking story, the second was at a hip-hop awards thing,” she said, “and this was at the Adidas store when he launched the Luke Skywalker sneaker.”
If you could be fiction or non-fiction, which would you be and why?
Non-fiction for sure. There are plenty of real places I have yet to visit, real people I have yet to meet, real experiences I have yet to have. Plus, if the Hunger Games Trilogy is any indication, the fictional future is way more of a bummer than the real one could possibly be.
