Bob Garfield isn't exactly a media whore, but he's extremely promiscuous. For 22 years, Bob has worked for Advertising Age, where his ad-criticism column has made him an institution, like the Red Cross. Or San Quentin. For most of that time, he has also been a fixture on National Public Radio, first as a roving correspondent for All Things Considered and for the past seven years as co-host of a program on the media, cleverly titled On the Media.
Bob is a founding contributor to the Watchdog Blog of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. He's been a contributing editor for the Washington Post Magazine, Civilization and the op-ed page of USA Today. He has also written for The New York Times, Playboy, Sports Illustrated and Wired and been employed variously by ABC, CBS, CNBC and the defunct FNN as an on-air analyst. As a lecturer and panelist, he has appeared on four continents, including such venues as the Kennedy Center, the U.S. Capitol, the Rainbow Room, the Smithsonian, Circus Circus casino, the Grand Ole Opry, the U.N. and, memorably, the Westward Ho! Motel in Grand Forks, N.D.
He is now writing his third book, Listenomics, on his Adage.com blog in full public view. His first book, Waking Up Screaming from the American Dream, was published by Scribner in 1997, favorably reviewed and quickly forgotten. His 2003 manifesto on advertising, And Now a Few Words From Me, is published in six languages (although, admittedly, one is Bulgarian). Garfield co-wrote “Tag, You're It,” a snappy country song performed by Willie Nelson, and wrote an episode of the short-lived NBC sitcom Sweet Surrender. It sucked.