Nissue #27: Phil Bronstein, Journalist and Editor.
Phil Bronstein has been known for many things: war correspondent, journalist, editor of both the SF Chronicle and Hearst Newspapers, chairman of the board for the Center for Investigative Reporting. He’s survived marriage to Sharon Stone, being attacked by a komodo dragon, and once drinking Bloody Marys with me before 10am at the St. Regis Hotel in San Francisco.
In recent years, his leadership with Reveal and CIR was monumental in keeping long-form journalism alive. Stories that need to be told, especially in an increasingly short attention span world. A true renaissance man, I’m just lucky to call him a friend.
Nish: What is your idea of perfect happiness?
Phil: Happiness without the expectation of perfection.
Nish: What was your worst job ever?
Phil: Selling Great Books of the Western World door-to-door. It required some grifter qualities, lack of empathy and Faustian deals. You knew most customers who bought them never used them. But they got a free bookcase.
Nish: What was your first job ever?
Phil: Other than weeding neighborhood gardens for a quarter at age 7 – most people’s first job? There was a crush of full employment in my teens: Helping out some Yale architecture grads to build cabins in Vermont at 15. Reviewing movies for the Davis Enterprise where I once constructed an overly lengthy piece about Clint Eastwood’s “Play Misty For Me” and forgot to mention the name of the film.
But favorite first job? Playing National Steel slide guitar in a Montreal blues band at 16 for $75 per show. The venue was called “The Yellow Door.” I was OK instrumentally but probably the worst singer you’ve ever heard. Neither the first nor the last time I surrendered something I loved to the overwhelming skill of others.
Nish: What was your best job ever?
Phil: Other than the weeding? International war correspondence. You’re forced to see and understand the best of human behavior (always involving deep personal courage) and the worst (“killed” does not come close to describing the violence done to the human body in times of war.) Brilliant, hopeful dreams and the most evil intent. If you get both of those, everything in the middle is an easier riddle to solve.
Nish: What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
Phil: Flawed conscience.
Nish: What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Phil: Presumptuousness.
Nish: What’s some advice you’d give to yourself at 23?
Keep your foot on the gas. Oh, and seek a second opinion.
Nish: What is your greatest extravagance?
Phil: Uh…
Nish: You have exclusive dinner reservations for 4, excluding family and close friends, who are the three people (alive, dead or imaginary) you’d invite?
Phil: W.C. Fields, Dag Hammarskjold, Meyer Lansky. If there’s a kids table, Roger Stone, Jeffrey Epstein and Gavin Newsom.
Nish: What is the theme song of your professional life?
Phil: Due respect to Woody Guthrie and all the others, I’m a fan of music that moves and connects with me in critical moments much more than any lyrics. So anything by Clarence Fountain and the Five Blind Boys to inspire me in moments of high adrenaline. Or ZZ Top to chase the demons out of my head.
Nish: What is your motto?
Phil: Without the wilderness, there can be neither reverence nor revelation.
Nish: What is something you’re really excited about right now?
Phil: Still breathing at 70.
Two of Phil’s close friends are Dave and Gina Pell, both of whom I interviewed for this publication. Dave has an amazing new book coming out, do the right thing and order a copy TODAY.
Another great journalist I interviewed was Ben Fong-Torres, way back in Nissue #4.