It's hard to find someone more in the thick of things in Raleigh than longtime editor-publisher
and columnist Bernie Reeves, currently at the helm of the four-color city-regional Metro Magazine.
Reeves has been the driving force in altering the landscape of area publishing, first with the
launch of Spectator in 1978 - the first city-weekly in the South and the first to compete successfully
against the monopoly dailies in the Triangle. He also founded the first area business journals in
North Carolina: Triangle Business Journal in 1985 and Triad Business Journal in 1986. He also
founded NC Architect magazine in a partnership with the AIA of North Carolina.
Spectator was sold to the Creative Loafing chain of weeklies in 1997, who sold it to the owners
of the Independent Weekly in 2001. The Triangle and Triad Business Journals were sold to the
Charlotte-based American City Business Journal companies, now owned by the Conde Nast
publishing conglomerate.
Metro Magazine is a four-color city-regional magazine focusing on politics, architecture, food
and wine, books and music, fashion and art and in-depth special features and sections on medicine,
education and area personalities.
Metro covers the Raleigh-Research Triangle-Eastern North Carolina region featuring some of the
best known writers in the South.
In addition to publishing magazines, Bernie Reeves and his wife Katie Reeves have helped establish
some of the most well-regarded cultural events in Raleigh.
Keying on the recent spate of declassified information after the fall of the Soviet Union, Reeves
established the Raleigh International Spy Conference in 2003. Each year the conference attracts top
experts in the world of intelligence to Raleigh, with subject areas ranging from the KGB in America,
the role of espionage in the age of terrorism, the scholarship of the Cold War and, in 2006, the
future of Cuba and Castro. C-SPAN has covered the conference as well as media in London, New York, Washington and Los Angeles.
In addition, Katie Reeves - vice-president of the magazine firm - founded and organized the
Mannequin Ball to spotlight the fast-growing fashion scene in Raleigh and the Triangle. The
first ball, held in 2006, featured famous Tar Heels Andre Leon Talley of Vogue and Coty-award winning
designer Alexander Julian. 2007 guests were Emily Procter, star of CSI:Miami, and five-time Tony
winner for costume design William Ivey Long both originally from Raleigh.
With his outspoken opinions, Reeves, a conservative, is well known for criticizing politics as
usual in his always controversial column My Usual Charming Self in the back of each issue of
Metro Magazine. Often criticized for
his opinions, Bernie seems to revel in his role as a writer who stirs things up.
Reeves is a larger than life figure and it's not hard to spot him in the room as he is very outgoing
and commands attention with his very presence.
Bernie Reeves -- the man behind much of what Raleigh has read over the last three decades and a
continued shaper of all things Raleigh.