American Magazine: November 2013

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*SPA alumnus, Buzzfeed legal editor covering LGBT issues
1. Supreme Court briefs are printed in
the press room as soon as decisions
come out. These are the four biggest
cases from the past term, including
the case challenging the Defense of
Marriage Act.
2. I live on Starbucks venti iced coffee
with sugar-free vanilla.
3. I’ve had my Sony digital voice
recorder for three years. If I’m at a
press conference, I can throw it on
the podium and still use my iPhone to
Tweet and take pictures.
4. One of the rules I learned at the
conventions was “ABC: always be
charging.” I’m never without my
iPhone 4S and Mophie backup battery.
5. This Buzzfeed notebook is almost too
nice to write in.
6. I always wear a tie at the Supreme
Court and the White House. When I’m
on Up with Steve Kornacki on MSNBC,
they encourage you to be casual, but
I can’t get over what my mother’s
reaction would be if she saw me on
national TV without a tie. I also carry
a spare pair of glasses; they once
snapped right in the middle, so I had
to do Last Word without glasses.
7. I worked for Metro Weekly from 2009
to 2012. They started my career.
Buzzfeed gave us the iPad Mini as a
present the first month the website
got 40 million unique views.
8. My 13-inch MacBook Air travels well
and has a good battery life. The
Verizon MiFi allows journalists to
write more than five sentences with
their thumbs on a phone.
9. I have subway cards from D.C.
and New York, where Buzzfeed’s headquartered.
I go to Boston just because
it’s Boston.
1 0 . Twitter and modern journalism are
inextricably intertwined. I got this
button from the Twitter booth at one
of the national political conventions
(from which I’ve kept all my press
credentials) last fall. I have over 21,000
Twitter followers (@chrisgeidner).
PHOTO BY MACEY FORONDA/BUZZFEED
48 AMERICAN MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 2013