Playing outside for a journalism career: all-work, no-play types need not apply

Boulder's outcroppings are never far from Matt Samet's mind as he works at Climbing Magazine.

Sam Flickinger on the slopes.

It's a great job, but somebody's got to do it. Alums Doug Baughman (MA '93), Sam Flickinger ('95) and Matt Samet (MA '02) have parlayed their enthusiasm for the West's open-air pastimes into editorships at leading national outdoor recreation magazines.

"Is it a dream job?" pondered Flickinger, the executive editor at Ski Racing Magazine in Salt Lake City who grew up in Steamboat Springs among future international skiing competitors. "You don't necessarily ski all the time. But if you don't like covering city council meetings, you still get to break a lot of news. You get to know world-famous racers on a personal level and find out they can be down to earth and just good people.

"If you like the sports, working here is the opportunity to direct coverage for the only magazine of its kind," Flickinger said. "Our readers are passionate readers and look to us to give them news. It's a real opportunity to shine a spotlight on things and people you want to cover."

Samet, editor in chief at Climbing Magazine in Boulder, said his favorite part of the job is his employer's open-door policy -– when he gets bored or stressed, he opens his office door and heads for the outcropping of his choice. "Since we're all climbers there, I can take off on a Wednesday and go to Eldorado State Park. For anyone who's in one of these outdoor sports, doing it consumes their whole day. A career that pays the bills and lets me keep climbing keeps me happy. I try to climb two days a week, mostly around Boulder. I love to climb here," he said.

"The expectation of my job is that I'm an active climber myself. I need to be current and participating in this sport," Samet said. Each year, he added, the magazine sends him on an editorial trip, during which he'll climb and research a location or personality.

Baughman, managing editor at VeloNews in Boulder, is not as devoted to cycling as Flickinger is to skiing or Samet to climbing.

"I began my magazine career as an intern here at the magazine, then moved to New York, where I helped launch Oprah's magazine (O, The Oprah Magazine) and worked for Rolling Stone, Us Weekly, and finally, New York Magazine," said Baughman, a New York native. "After 10 years in Manhattan, I needed a respite."

He said he likes the local bicycling scene and the people in it, but when he decided to find the "escape hatch out of Manhattan" last year, it was the overall and predominant active Boulder lifestyle he found most appealing, not his new publication's competitive-cycling niche.

"Putting out a magazine is putting out a magazine," he said. "But what's not to like about Boulder? I was looking for the access to the outdoors. Boulder doesn't have the same intensity as Manhattan. People come out here for a more balanced life. Anyone in the magazine business should do that for a period of time."