MARCH 16th

Sitting outside an isolated bar in the Embarcadero a young and very nervous journalism student waits for Staff Editor of San Francisco Magazine, Matt Bloom, to show up. Upon arrive he shakes her hand and proceeds inside to order a cold beer. Half a beer later, a few laughs and some casual talk later the interview starts.
Matt Bloom’s height is just as high as his confidence level as he begins to speak about himself and his career. Sporting trendy oversized sunglasses which cover almost his entire baby face and button up plaid shirt, it is hard to not be attracted to this 25 year old from what he calls “strip mall heaven” right outside of Chicago. Upon leaving the suburbs he went to University of Montana where he double majored in Spanish and Journalism. However, it was a single magazine writing class that influenced his path after graduation.
Bloom got his first job in South Carolina at Columbia Metropolitan Magazine where he made some fast cash only to bail and spend the next six months driving across the country. Living out of his car, surviving off pizza and partying too much eventually landed Matt back at his parent’s new house in Half Moon Bay. In February 2007 Matt landed himself an internship at San Francisco Magazine. Right away he was put to work and sent out to interview some pretty big names including Bill Pullman who Matt claims was more nervous than him during the interview. A year and some change later, he is now enjoying his staff editor cubical in a colorful office off Vallejo Street.
As staff editor his main responsibilities are editing the web pages, uploading print content to the site, editing and publishing blog entries from fellow staff writers, travel pieces and various freelance pieces. The company has about 15 on the editorial side and a few more than 15 on the management/ advertisement side. Although no job is all glitz and glam, Matt claims, “It’s fun. It’s a fun job. Hell, I eat oysters and drink champagne three days a week.” On the other side, he lets me in on some of the negative parts of the job. “I hate to talk shit on the management but someone is making money off this magazine and it sure isn’t me. The money is really tough sometimes.” Matt says and then takes another swig of his beer.
With the recent economy and election battles it was inevitable the subjects would come up. Keeping the conversation positive Matt states, “I believe it can only go up from here. With the election coming up and things settling down in the near future things have got to get better. I guess it just hasn’t directly effected in my job enough to make me worry.” Magazines may be seeing the brunt of the problems in Journalism right now but with San Francisco Magazine’s parent company Modern Luxury, it is hard to imagine problems in the future. In fact, although most people do not have disposable income for lifestyle magazines right now, San Francisco magazine is actually the only magazine owned by Modern Luxury that is currently meeting its goals. The current circulation is 100,000 subscriptions and 300,000 published.
Perhaps this has to do with the amount of work put into the production of he magazine. During the beginning of the month Bloom will work between 25-35 hours a week and when deadlines approach at the end of the month weeks reach about 50-60 hours. Bloom adds, “A lot of the time I go home and bring work home with me. This business is about ideas more than grinding it out. When you think of something, you have to get on it.”
San Francisco Magazine recently started another quarterly magazine called “The Men’s Book” in which Matt Bloom serves as the San Francisco Managing Editor. In the first article Bloom wrote several articles on baseball. When asked about it, Bloom tells me he is a huge Giants fan but he would not want to be a sports writer because “it’s just dry sarcastic statistics from an insiders perspective.” However he says he would eventually like to get into the music field and write more true journalistic pieces with less fluff. In his spare time, Matt also enjoys sitting in Dolores Park, getting a drink with friends and freelance writing.
Matt hopes that in about a year or so he will be able to use his experience with San Francisco Magazine and move onto something bigger and better. It is very clear that there are good things in the future for this talented young man. And yes ladies, he is single and available.