Author

Benjamin has been writing since his first gig as a fifteen-year-old stringer for the local Suburban & Wayne Times. He was managing editor of The Conestoga Spoke, and contributor to The Syracuse Daily Orange.

Since graduating from Syracuse University with dual degrees in Journalism and Creative Writing (Tobias Wolff led his Senior Workshop), Benjamin has been published in Rolling Stone, Men's Journal, MTV News, Mental Floss and Swing Magazine on topics ranging from politics to pop culture.

He has interviewed Bono, The Edge, Neil Young, Michael Stipe, Reed Hastings, Shepard Fairey, Douglas Coupland, Cameron Crowe, Michael Penn, David Gray, Aimee Mann and Paul Thomas Anderson, amongst others.

Benjamin contributed to the collection, "2 Do Before I Die," and wrote the award-winning 2012 PBS documentary, "Mister Rogers & Me."

Benjamin began blogging in 2000, and continues regular weekly updates via his newsletter.

He is currently writing a memoir expected in 2024.

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Oct 2 2023

Robert Mancini: Iron Man

For a hot minute there in the late 90s, Robert Mancini and I were the first two staffers into the MTV News offices every morning tasked with writing, producing, and publishing half a dozen stories to MTV News Dot Com before the television news meeting even began. Robert wrote years of daily news articles, on-air…

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Sep 25 2023

Abbie Kearse: Sweat The Technique

As a writer, reporter and producer for “The Week in Rock” and a wide range of documentaries including “Gangsta Rap: An MTV News Special Report,” Abbie Kearse sat down with some of rock and hip-hop’s biggest legends and tackled some of the most important social issues of the day. In addition to covering monster rock acts…

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Sep 19 2023

Michael Alex: Golden Years

Few MTV News staffers had a run like Michael Alex. For sixteen years of MTV News’ heyday, Michael did it all, from producing The Week in Rock and Choose or Loose, to spearheading the launch of MTV News Dot Com, and interviewing all of the greats from The Ramones to The Replacements, Mick Jagger to…

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