Gersh Kuntzman

Mr. Kuntzman is the editor of the award-winning broadsheet, The Brooklyn Paper, but he’s a tabloid hack, first and foremost. For the long-forgotten decade of the 1990s, Mr. Kuntzman was a reporter at the New York Post, first covering the entertainment industry and, later, covering news. His weekly column, MetroGnome, offered a witty and wry slice of New York life. Several of Mr. Kuntzman's features and news stories won awards, while a series of columns he wrote on the annual hot-dog-eating championship at Coney Island inspired the award-winning film "Red, White and Yellow." Variety magazine called his performance in the film “outstanding” and "a breath of fresh air, albeit tinged with garlic, blowing through all of Hollywood.” In 2001, Mr. Kuntzman started writing his weekly “American Beat” column for Newsweek Online. It died in 2005, through no fault of his.

Mr. Kuntzman’s freelance work has appeared in such esteemed magazines as Salon, Cosmopolitan, Modern Humorist, Radar, Redbook, George, New York Observer and New York magazine. He is also the author of “HAIR! Mankind's Historic Quest to End Baldness” (Random House, 2001), that classic social history of male pattern baldness, and “Chrismukkah: The Official Guide to the World’s Most-Beloved Holiday” (Sasquatch, 2006), which is the best Chrismukkah book ever. He is also a playwright. His comedy, “SUV: The Musical!” played the NYC International Fringe Fest in 2005. His new play, “Stop the Presses: An Imperative,” is a biting satire of the newspaper business. Ouch. That stings.