Rob Walker (journalist)

: "Not to be confused with former Road & Track writer and Formula One owner Rob Walker"

Rob Walker (born 1968 in Texas) is a freelance journalist and the "Consumed" columnist for "The New York Times".

His writing — on such subjects as money culture, advertising, music, and sequential artists — has appeared in many magazines and newspapers. Walker has worked as an editor for the "New York Times Magazine", "Money", and "The American Lawyer", among other publications. He is also the former "Moneybox" columnist for Slate.com.

Consumed

"Consumed," which appears weekly in "The New York Times Magazine", examines consumer behavior from a hybrid business-and-anthropology standpoint. Each column discusses a new product or consumer trend. Everything in "Consumed" already has some kind of traction with some group of consumers; the column attempts to figure out what consumers are responding to in that "product," which can be anything from dish soap to beer to a television show.

Murketing

Murketing.com is Walker's blog, descended from an earlier Walker project called the Journal of Murketing, which was an email newsletter on subjects now written about in "Consumed." "Murketing" — as originally coined by Walker in an article in "Outside" magazine about the energy drink Red Bull — derives from "murky:"

"Buying In"

A book exploring themes similar to those in Walker's "Consumed" columns, "Buying In: The Secret Dialogue Between What We Buy and Who We Are" (ISBN 1400063914), was released by Random House in June 2008.

Letters from New Orleans

Walker's book, "Letters From New Orleans" (Garrett County Press, 2005, ISBN 1891053019) is a softcover book taken from Walker's emails "to interested parties" about life in New Orleans, where he lived in the late 90s-early 00s. Subjects covered in "Letters From New Orleans" include celebratory gunfire, rich people, religion, the riddle of race relations in our time, robots, fine dining, drunkenness, urban decay, debutantes, the nature of identity, Gennifer Flowers, and mortality. All author proceeds from "Letters from New Orleans" went to relief organizations such as the Red Cross and others working with victims of Hurricane Katrina.

t. James Infirmary and NO Notes

One of the chapters in "Letters from New Orleans" discusses the song "St. James Infirmary." Reader feedback about that chapter led to Walker starting the "NO Notes" blog. "NO Notes" is place to collect some of the links, leads, thoughts, and suggestions relating to the song that readers (from Finland, The Netherlands, Australia, Spain, England, Sweden, Canada, and all over the U.S.) sent him.

MLK Blvd

A number of the photographs in "Letters From New Orleans" are from a Walker project called “MLK Blvd.” Interested in how many cities have a street named for Martin Luther King Jr., and how many of these MLK Boulevards (as in New Orleans) seem to have an awful lot of abandoned property, scary-looking bars, and small groceries that accept food stamps, Walker planned on doing some sort of photo book on the subject of this “legacy.” (This was before Walker became aware of a documentary called "MLK Boulevard", or the book, written by Jonathan Tilove, with photographs by Michael Falco called, "Along Martin Luther King: Travels On Black America’s Main Street".) Eventually, Walker's project became an “open source” journalism project, housed on Flickr.com.

Titans of Finance

Under the pseudonym R. Walker, Walker has written a number of comic book stories. A collection of his satirical stories of the business world were released in 2001 as "Titans of Finance: True Tales of Money & Business" (Alternative Comics, ISBN 1891867059). Collaborating with artist Josh Neufeld, Walker tells the tales of Wall Street's most well-known Icaruses. The stories are entirely based on press accounts, with practically no embellishment. Among those profiled are Ronald O. Perelman, Al Dunlap, Mike Vranos, and Victor Niederhoffer.

"Titans of Finance" received a good deal of attention from the mainstream business press, including "Fortune Small Business", [Gilman, Hank. "Editor's Notes," "Fortune Small Business" (Feb. 2002).] "U.S. News & World Report", [Pethokoukis, James M. "Corporate comics: It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a . . . flying CEO?" "U.S News & World Report" (Sept. 2001).] "Kiplinger's Personal Finance", [Sean O'Neill, "Comedy of Errors," "Kiplinger's Personal Finance" (Sept. 2001)] "Money Magazine" [Kurson, Ken. "CEOs as Comic Heroes," "Money Magazine" (June 2001).] , and "The New York Times" [ [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9907E2DC173FF930A35755C0A9679C8B63 McGeehan, Patrick, "Private Sector; Dumbed Down on Wall St.: Junk Finance, With Pictures," "New York Times" (June 3, 2001).] ] .

Biographical Data

Walker is a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin. A native of Texas, Walker now lives with his wife, photographer and designer Ellen Susan, in Savannah, Georgia.

External links

* [http://www.RobWalker.net Rob Walker's website]
* [http://www.nytimes.com/pages/magazine/ New York Times Magazine website]
* [http://www.murketing.com Murketing.com website]
* [http://nonotes.wordpress.com NO Notes website]
* [http://www.flickr.com/groups/mlkblvd/ MLK Blvd Flickr photopool]
* [http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/14048 Video discussion/debate with Walker] and Will Wilkinson on Bloggingheads.tv

References

; Sourced consulted
* [http://www.wnyc.org/shows/bl/episodes/11282005 "Brian Lehrer Show" interview on WNYC radio]
* [http://gothamist.com/2005/10/24/rob_walker_journalist.php Gothamist interview]
* [http://www.core77.com/reactor/06.05_walker.asp Core77.com interview]

; Endnotes