Spencer Bailey

Bailey was born and raised in Denver, Colorado. He grew up with his brothers Brandon and Trent in a single-parent household.

Spencer Bailey being carried to safety by Lt. Colonel Dennis Nielsen after the crash of United Airlines Flight 232

Bailey is a survivor of United Airlines Flight 232, which crash-landed in Sioux City, Iowa, on July 19, 1989. His brother Brandon also survived the crash, but their mother, Frances, did not. She was one of 111 passengers that died. Bailey's brother Trent and their father, Brownell, were not on the plane. Bailey is the subject of a famous photograph by Gary Anderson showing Lt. Colonel Dennis Nielsen carrying him to safety. A statue based on the picture is part of the Flight 232 Memorial in Sioux City's riverfront development. Bailey noted in a 2008 interview that the experience of surviving the crash "spawned [his] interest in writing and discovering the experiences of others through writing their stories". Of the statue, in the same interview, Bailey said, "It's strange being 22 years old and seeing yourself in a metal statue. It's something so permanent. And I'm sure often times people go and look at it and they think that I probably passed away. I don't think they probably realize that I'm still alive."

Bailey graduated from Pomfret School in Pomfret, Connecticut, in 2004. He received a B.A. in English from Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, in 2008 and an M.S. in journalism from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 2010. Bailey is a drummer, and after high school he spent the summer of 2004 playing in a rock band in New York City.

Early work (2005–2010)

Bailey's first interest in journalism "happened in high school studying fiction and poetry, and then in college, realizing I was never going to make a living writing fiction or poetry, and that I needed an outlet. I eventually ended up working at my college's alumni magazine, Dickinson Magazine. It was there that I got to work with an editor, Sherri Kimmel, who really showed me the ropes. I also had a few professors who made me realize I wasn’t that good of a writer and had to push myself to become that much better." He has cited former Cosmopolitan magazine editor-in-chief Kate White as a mentor.

In the summer of 2009, he took a fiction-writing workshop led by Gordon Lish. Of the Lish class, Bailey told an interviewer, "The whole concept of the class was basically to learn how to write a story, period. What this class did was basically strip everything down to the barest essential, which was a sentence. Really, a word, actually, and then a sentence, and then you had to build everything from that first word. The idea was that by the 12th class, we would be able to have a full story. Very few people made it to a full story. For some, it was really humiliating. ... I made it to two and a half pages. It was more than a sentence, but I never finished the story. I was inspired by Lish, but also sort of terrified of him. ... What it taught me, really, was the power of language, thinking of words not so much as a poet but really on a base level, making sure everything you put out there counts."

In December 2009, while studying at Columbia, he wrote a story for The New York Daily News on how cupcake shops were contributing to gentrification. From January to May 2010, he interned at Vanity Fair. In September 2010, he published his first major magazine story, a profile in Poetry Magazine of the poet Timothy Donnelly.

Bloomberg Businessweek and The New York Times Magazine (2010–2014)

From 2010 to 2013, Bailey was a frequent contributor to Bloomberg Businessweek, and from 2011 to 2014, The New York Times Magazine. His first assignment for The New York Times Magazine, in October 2011, led him to spending a night at Zucotti Park and a nearby McDonald's during the Occupy Wall Street movement. Over the next three years, he interviewed authors, celebrities, politicians, and cultural figures such as Al Sharpton, Tony Hawk, Rodney King, and Cyndi Lauper for a "How To ..." column in The New York Times Magazine. Bailey's interview with Rodney King was one of King's last before his fiancée found him dead at the bottom of a swimming pool. Bailey wrote in a June 2012 blog post that, of all the "How to ..." interviews to date, the one with King "has stuck with me the most." In the interview, King told Bailey, "When I leave here, when my final day on this earth is up, I want to leave in peace. I want to have peace in my heart."

Surface Media (2010–present)

From May to August 2010, Bailey worked at The Daily Beast, and in September 2010 he was hired as assistant editor at Surface.

At Surface, Bailey has interviewed hundreds of leading architects, artists, designers, and others, including David Adjaye, Tadao Ando, Thom Browne, Zaha Hadid, Frank Gehry, John Pawson, Ian Schrager, Philippe Starck, and Kanye West. In June 2013, Bailey was promoted to executive editor of the magazine, and in January 2015 he became editor-in-chief. With the June/July 2013 issue—Bailey’s first as editor—Surface unveiled a major design overhaul created in partnership with the consultancy Noë & Associates. In August 2013, Bailey helped launch the Design Dialogues conversation series, moderating a talk between Ian Schrager and George Yabu and Glenn Pushelberg of Yabu Pushelberg. He has since moderated Design Dialogues talks with Michael Kimmelman and Annabelle Selldorf, Stefan Sagmeister and Jeffrey Deitch, and David Rockwell and Marcel Wanders, among others.

Prior to Bailey taking over as editor of Surface, the magazine was known for covering the "design world"; he pivoted it to covering the world through the lens of design, to appeal to a wider audience. As he told Politico, "We're not a shelter title. We're not a 'lifestyle book.' We're not a trade journal. We're an American general interest magazine and we're bringing design into the larger conversation. Its important that our readers understand that [...] design is deep-seated and connects how we live now. I don't think it’s ever our agenda to stand out to advertisers, but at the end of the day, the strongest thing we have in terms of attracting advertisers is authenticity. We're actually talking about craftsmanship and creativity and going directly to the people who make these things, who are creating the physical world we live in. When you can tap into that culture and have a voice that is streamlined, focused, and thoughtful, you have a power." In an August 2015 interview with WWD, Bailey described his approach this way: "I look at Surface as a start-up, even though we’re a 23-year-old media company."

Surface interviews by Bailey have garnered attention in the media. An interview he conducted with the artist Julian Schnabel, published in the November 2013 issue, was quoted in Page Six: "I find less and less that I care if people understand me," Schnabel told Bailey. "I didn’t want to do this interview, but I did it because if people are interested in your work, then you should support them." In an interview Bailey reported for the June/July 2014 issue, real estate developer Aby Rosen called Tom Wolfe a "buffoon." His interview with Kanye West, published in the December 2016/January 2017 issue, was covered internationally. Page Six called the conversation between Bailey and West "strange"; Billboard called it "thoughtful."

In 2014, with CEO Marc Lotenberg, Bailey formed Surface Media. In May 2016, Lotenberg and Bailey created Surface Studios, which has partnered with companies including Adidas Originals, Leica, Nike, and Tumi.

In January 2017, Bailey was named editorial director of Surface Media.