Ben Komins Wants Skateboarding Journalism
to be More Than
Just Skateboarding

The managing editor of Jenkem Magazine is expanding sports journalism by focusing on things other than sports.

By David Samuel

New York–October 3, 2025 | Ben Komins is busy—really busy. Managing editors of small publications often are. “I’m not just editing or managing…I am the main contributor to the magazine, I edit videos, I review submissions, organize the staff, find new avenues for Jenkem to go down, conduct the interviews, meet deadlines, edit other’s work, and I am now an on-camera personality,” says Komins, describing what a typical week looks like. If you’ve ever doubted how serious a “fun” magazine can be—ask yourself: do you do half of that in a week?

Komins’ rise to managing editor was meteoric. In 2020, he was living in Florida and working as a freelance writer for Monster Children, a surf/skate magazine. In 2023, he applied for an internship in at Jenkem Magazine in New York City. Working as an intern is not glamorous,“I mainly did video editing but one time, I did have to go pick up the boss’s laundry…it was a humbling experience, it sucked,” he recalls. The internship was unpaid, so Komins bartended at night to support himself. Toward the end of the internship, the magazine began looking for a new editor. Komins applied—and got the job. Why him? “I think the thing that they liked about me was that I knew how to pitch a story.”

Advice for Aspiring Journalists
Now, as managing editor, Komins reviews pitches regularly—and has some straightforward advice. “I get messages all the time [from writers] that say ‘wouldn’t it be cool to write a story about whatever’ and I have to be like, it would be cool, but that isn’t how you pitch a story.” His advice for anyone serious about a journalism career? “Learn how to pitch a story.”
One of the challenges of working for a “fun, unserious” magazine is that readers often don’t see how serious the work really is. “Like, we are all skateboarders and we all like to have fun but when it comes to work, everything is extremely professional. We are real writers. It’s our job.” This seriousness contrasting with the unserious content is what makes Komins’ Jenkem so much fun.

How He is Changing Skateboarding Journalism
So—how much can you really write about skateboarding? That question pushed Komins to find a new direction for the magazine. “When you look at other magazines, especially the big ones, they are so repetitive. Like how much can you write about a new shoe or a new wheel? It gets boring. I wanted to do something different. Like it still has to be about skateboarding or at least skateboarding adjacent but I told the other guys, ‘We can do something different’ and that’s how the Jenkem Tries series came about.”

In many ways, Jenkem Tries is really Komins Tries. The video series follows Komins as he steps out of his comfort zone—trying stand-up comedy, wheatpasting, breakdancing, and more. “The people [in the videos] we find are skateboarders but it’s not like they spend all day skateboarding. Skateboarding is just a part of their life and we get to show a different side…It’s all just stuff [in the Tries videos] that is intimidating to me and I wouldn’t get to try normally. It’s been really rewarding.”

Challenges of Internet Publications
Being part of an internet magazine has its own set of challenges. “There isn’t immediate gratification. Like you have some idea of how many people are watching but it’s harder to experience what kind of impact a particular video or piece might have. Everything is so fast nowadays like half the time, you don’t even know if people are actually watching.”

But small moments of recognition make a big difference. “Louie Lopez came up to me at a party and was like ‘Yo, that stand-up video you did. Man, that was really funny.’ That gets me so stoked. I looked up to this guy and had no idea he knew who I was and the fact that the videos are reaching him and he likes them is just so dope.”

What’s Next for Komins?
For Komins, writing for Jenkem, skateboarding, and trying new things feels like a dream realized. “This is where I want to be.” Looking forward, he hopes to expand the magazine in new directions and continue making unique, creative content. One goal? Bringing Jenkem to print. “So shops have something to stock,” he says, emphasizing his belief in the importance of physical media.

Kommins is also working on a personal project—a print collection of articles and ideas that aren’t skateboarding-adjacent-enough for Jenkem. “I’m working on a side project, just for myself, of articles and things that I couldn’t do in Jenkem and that will be in print.” For Komins, print matters. And he’s confident it isn’t going anywhere.
That optimism—and the drive behind it—is part of what makes Komins so cool.