The Scottish Editor Who Landed in America and Made a Town Famous

Jack Wright has had a career with more plot twists than most novelists would attempt. Born in Paisley, Scotland, he cut his teeth on local papers in the west of Scotland before climbing through the ranks to the Daily Record, then the Daily Mirror, where, by the mid-90s, he found himself with a job as night editor at one of Britain’s most famous tabloids and one of Piers Morgan’s trusted lieutenants. Jack was helping produce the paper in an era when journalists would regularly slip out quietly for a couple of lunchtime gins at the pub downstairs before heading back to the desk. The copy, he insists, was flawless.Then came a detour to the Daily Express, a magazine launch, and eventually a phone call that changed everything. A contact tipped off a New York publisher about a young British editor with a European sensibility. Jack flew over, met Bob Guccione Jr. — founder of Spin, and son of the Penthouse founder — and found himself editing GEAR magazine in Manhattan. As Jack explains in today’s Deadliners podcast, after New York burned him out, he quit his job with no savings, no car, no plan, and somehow ended up running a pool bar at one of the oldest seaside hotels in America in Cape May, New Jersey. He was a terrible bartender. But Cape May, with its Victorian gingerbread homes, lighthouse, whaling history, and beautiful beaches, got under his skin in a way Manhattan never had. When Jack found himself eating cereal with ants in it because he couldn’t afford to throw it away, he did the only thing he knew how to do: he launched a magazine.Exit Zero started as a 24-page black-and-white newsprint rag. The magazine grew to 144 pages and helped transform Cape May from a quiet Jersey Shore town into something people drove hours to visit. The Garden State Parkway authority eventually put up a sign at the end of the highway that read Exit Zero — a tribute, they said, to what the magazine had done for the place.Along the way Jack wrote or oversaw stories that got a mayor voted out of office and a city manager fired. He expanded his empire, opening (with zero experience in the food business) a curry restaurant. He expanded into a huge ferry terminal. He lost a lot of money. He got out. But he kept printing.Now, two decades in, Jack is still publishing, still writing, and still convinced that print isn’t going anywhere — even as advertisers become more Instagram-obsessed. In our conversation, he reflects on what’s been lost since the Fleet Street days, why he thinks the New York Times has got the digital pivot right, and what it actually takes to build something lasting in a world that keeps telling you print is dead. Get full access to Deadliners at deadliners.substack.com/subscribe