By NATALIE KING,
J Camp Live! Staff

Arriving fashionably late in Manolo Blahniks – the stereotypical Manhattanite – Teri Agins propped herself on a slick brown table and embraced herself for an array of questions. What was it like to dine at Karl Lagerfeld’s house? How did race affect her career progression?

Agins answered all of the high school students’ questions with one lesson.

“This is a very serious business,” said the 53-year-old Wall Street Journal fashion reporter and “The End of Fashion” author. “I write a lot of controversial stories.”

Agins endorsed the significance of news as business, even as she laughed throughout her discussion. She shared many stories during her discussion, ranging from her upbringing in Kansas City, MO writing for her junior high newspaper, to the five years she spent in Brazil.

As a Wall Street Journal reporter, Agins provided a valuable perspective that easily made anyone in the audience realize just how much money makes the world turn.

“We look at people and their money,” she said. “Politics follow money. Everything follows money.”

Quick to offer the demographic of the Journal’s readership- earning a median six-figure salary- many in the audience were awed by the wealth and success of its readers, a reaction Agins was ready to pounce upon.

“This whole change of journalism is a business,” Agins said.

With the advancement of the Internet and the demand from readers eager for the world to be at their fingertips, Agins stressed the importance of mastering the basics while exercising a courageous approach in the industry.

“Writing should be simple. Subject, verb, object,” said Agins, warning not to incorporate “flowery adjectives,” in one’s writing to avoid a “fake,” impression. “Choose a word that people can understand.”

Agins is gifted storyteller, softening the intimidation one would easily vibe off the career-minded woman. She shared some of her most challenging experiences, from rising to the front row of the star-studded Bryant Park tents, to exposing the 17 cases of discrimination filed at Polo Ralph Lauren ridden with extortion themselves. Agins not only told her audience about the power and importance of excellent writing skills and confident investigation, she easily demonstrated it as well.

The prosperity of her career has always come first. Agins divorced in 1990 and expressed no desire to have children, although she does support her best friend’s son through journalism school as a way to give back. From traveling to Baton Rouge to investigating the real truth behind NY socialite Genevieve Jones, and offering consumer-wise shopping tips from the couch of Oprah Winfrey, Teri Agins has enjoyed a wild ride. She admitted that she embodies the New York lifestyle, yet Agins embraces the basics needed to make in it the “business” of news. She beamed satisfaction while surrounded by curious students, and it was clear to all that she was a woman of final word.

“The joy of reading is a beautiful thing,” she reminded the many students. “You don’t do books to make money… [make it] provable, bulletproof, and not someone else’s opinion.”