Nicholas Jackson (editor) – Wikipedia

American author

Nicholas Jackson (born 1987) is an American author, writer, and magazine editor known for his work at The Atlantic,^[1]Outside,^[2] and Pacific Standard,^[3] where he served as the magazine’s third editor-in-chief from 2015^[4] until its closure in 2019.^[5] He has since worked as an independent consultant and media strategist^[6] for a variety of publishers and organizations.

Education[edit]

Jackson is a graduate of The Illinois Mathematics & Science Academy, a three-year residential high school in Aurora, Illinois, founded by Leon Lederman, where he was the 2005 commencement speaker^[7] and an editor on The Acronym, the independent, student-run newspaper. In 2009, he graduated from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications with a bachelor’s degree in journalism. Eight years later, he was profiled in Medill’s alumni magazine in 2017 as an editor focused on accountability journalism in the public interest.^[8]

After two years as the digital director and associate publisher overseeing business development and online audience growth, Jackson was appointed the third editor-in-chief of Pacific Standard. During his tenure as editor, the magazine earned numerous awards and industry accolades, including journalism’s highest honor, a National Magazine Award.^[9] It also earned a Silver Medal for Feature Design from the Society of Publication Designers,^[10] a Mirror Award for Best Profile from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University for “Editor in Exile,”^[11] and several arts and entertainment awards from the Los Angeles Press Club.^[12] In addition, the magazine was recognized by the National Association of Science Writers for best long-form writing and reporting,^[13] and the Society of Environmental Journalists for its investigative environmental journalism. Works that first appeared in Pacific Standard have been featured in multiple anthologies, including Best American Essays,^[14]Best American Science & Nature Writing,^[15]Best Food Writing,^[16]Best American Sports Writing, and What Future: The Year’s Best Ideas to Reclaim, Reanimate & Reinvent Our Future.

In 2017, Jackson won the National Magazine Award from the American Society of Magazine Editors in the Feature Photography category^[17][18][19] for “Adrift,” a series on Eritrean refugees photographed from on board a Doctors Without Borders ship in the Mediterranean.^[20] In the award citation, the ASME judges wrote that, “sensitively paced and complemented by elegant typography, Francesco Zizola’s photographs of migrants attempting to cross the Mediterranean combine a strong visual perspective with a powerful narrative voice.”^[21]

Jackson was a finalist two years later, in 2019, for the National Magazine Award in Essays and Criticism^[22] for Terese Marie Mailhot’s story about surviving racism as a Native writer, “Silence Breaking Woman.”

He was named to Folio: magazine’s 30 under 30 list in both 2012^[23] and 2017,^[24] with Folio: editors citing the National Magazine Award win and writing that, “with limited resources, Jackson has made Pacific Standard a must-read for those interested in working toward forward-looking solutions to social and environmental problems.”^[25]

At Pacific Standard, he argued for radical transparency around editorial decisions in newsrooms^[26] and promoted the importance of strong relationships with freelance writers, leading the magazine to be named one of the best places to pitch story ideas.^[27] As editor-in-chief, he was also publicly celebrated for developing remote working policies for staff journalism jobs,^{[28][non-primary source needed]} paying writers fairly and quickly,^{[29][non-primary source needed]} and “cultivating stories that inform and change people’s lives.”^[30]

When the magazine closed, it was written that Jackson “led a superb editorial team over his six years there”^[31] and that Pacific Standard “stood out from the pack of click-hungry websites.”^[32]Lloyd Grove, of The Daily Beast, reported that the shutdown “hit the journalism community especially hard,”^[33] with other journalists noting that “I’ve looked to Pacific Standard so many times for examples of great, clear-eyed reporting and elegant (but never over-the-top) writing”^[34] and that “Pacific Standard was the best dedicated source for social science coverage anywhere, and routinely put out stories that made me burn with jealousy that I didn’t think of them first or do them as well. The world will be worse without it.”^[35]

References[edit]