Michael Caruso, Smithsonian’s new editor, sees a livelier future for magazine

Screaming for readers’ attention

When Caruso arrived at the magazine’s L’Enfant Plaza headquarters in November, one of his first orders of business was to sit down with the art director and figure out how to grab more attention with the cover.

GoingOut Guide

Looking for things to do?

Select one or more criteria to search

Anything Events Bars & Club Events Book Events Exhibits Food Events Miscellaneous Events Music Events Performing Arts Sports Events Movies Locations Bars & Clubs City Services Hotels Miscellaneous Locations Movie Theaters Museums Music Venues Restaurants Sports Locations Stores Theaters Anytime Today This Weekend Next 7 Days Opening Soon Closing Soon Anywhere in D.C. area D.C. U Street The Mall Tenleytown Takoma SW Waterfront Other Southwest Other Southeast Other Northwest Other Northeast Logan Circle Georgetown Foggy Bottom Dupont Circle Downtown Columbia Heights/Mt. Pleasant Cleveland Park/Woodley Park Chinatown Chevy Chase Capitol Hill Brookland Anacostia Adams Morgan Maryland St. Mary's County Prince George's County Montgomery County Howard County Greater Maryland Frederick County Charles County Calvert County Baltimore Anne Arundel County Virginia Prince William County Loudoun County Greater Virginia Fauquier County Fairfax County Arlington County Alexandria

Kid-friendly

Free admission

Get ideas

“You have to engage people,” he says, sitting in a white office that he hasn’t gotten around to decorating. “People have TV, they’re busy, they have kids. They have all sorts of other things screaming for their attention, and you’ve got to be in that mix — you’ve got to scream for their attention, too.”

A ferocious, open-mouthed snake, for example, might get a second glance.

And while the previous editor’s philosophy was that Smithsonian Magazine should offer an intellectual respite from the 24-hour news cycle, Caruso wants the magazine to be part of that cycle.

He intends to have stories that spin off current events — and occasionally create news. The May issue, for instance, featured an interview with “The Simpsons” creator Matt Groening. For years, Groening had punted on the question of which state’s Springfield inspired Bart and Homer’s city on the show. In the interview, he revealed that it was Springfield, Ore., near his home town, Portland. In the two days after the interview was published, the magazine’s Web site had 500,000 visitors. It averages 1 million visitors a month.

Caruso created a regular poetry feature and immediately began organizing issues around themes — travel in May, food in June — to showcase the magazine’s breadth of coverage. And just as he did as sports editor at the Village Voice, he has encouraged his 28-person editorial staff to think as broadly as possible about what constitutes a Smithsonian Magazine article. A story about the Mexican village where Mitt Romney’s father was born? Yep. A feature on a Tasmanian art museum that encourages visitors to strip and follow a naked docent? Absolutely.

Over his three decades in publishing, Caruso has amassed a powerhouse Rolodex of writers. Since his arrival, he has commissioned pieces by Ruth Reichl, Mimi Sheraton, David Maraniss, Natalie Angier and Sloane Crosley.

But he has also made internal changes. In January, he laid off six associate editors in charge of fact-checking and outsourced that function, though he says every fact in the magazine is still checked. And the remaining staff members are still adjusting to his quick-talking style and demand for a faster metabolism.

‘He comes out of left field’

“He’s a great rainmaker, Michael,” says Tina Brown, his former boss. “He’s full of ideas and energy, and he’s a terrific editor of copy. He can take a big pile of very unpromising material and vacuum it up in some wonderful way that produces an excellent piece at the end.”

But, she added, “not everybody is crazy about Michael. I happen to be one of his fans. He’s a maverick. He comes out of left field, and he’s very persistent. And he sometimes treads on toes of other colleagues in the office who are not as persistent or reaching for the bar as he is.”

Though the magazine is undoubtedly more lively and tantalizing under Caruso’s leadership, the changes haven’t been universally well received. In the comments section of a media blog, one reader wrote, “After 35 years of subscribing, I’m finding less and less to like with each issue.” But Caruso says most of the feedback has been “thrillingly positive.”

Ott, who helped hire Caruso, is delighted with the product he is putting out. “To me he’s already lived up to the promise and vision that he had outlined for us,” Ott said. “He didn’t waste a lot of time. It’s a magazine now that’s written for the future.”

Only three editors preceded Caruso over the magazine’s four decades. It’s a gig in which people stay for a long while — which has not been Caruso’s pattern. And it will not be easy with a wife and four young children still living in New York. Caruso’s wife, Andrea Sheehan, was vice president of digital publishing at Random House until recently, when she left to launch a digital education company. Caruso takes the train home each weekend and returns to D.C. early Monday morning.

But he says this is a position he’s excited to stick with. He’s already met with the directors of each Smithsonian department and spends his rare free hour wandering through the museums.

“The more I looked at [the job], the better it got, and at some point I said: ‘Oh, I cannot turn this down. This is great,’ ” he says. “I think that part of my job now is to make [the magazine] an open secret. To have everybody realize what a great thing it is.”