After Brook Farm, George Ripley began to work as a freelance journalist. In 1849 he was employed by Horace Greeley at the "New York Tribune", taking the role left vacant by Margaret Fuller. Greeley had been a proponent of Brook Farm's conversion to Fourierism. Ripley started his role with the "Tribune" at $12 a week and, at this wage, was not able to pay off the debt of Brook Farm until 1862. As a critic, he believed in high moral standards for literature but offered good-natured praise in the majority of his reviews. Greeley took advantage of Ripley's cheerful style of writing to boost circulation amid significant competition. Ripley wrote a "Gotham Gossip" column and many articles discussing local personalities and notable public events, including speeches by Henry Clay and Frederick Douglass. He stayed away from philosophy of theology, despite some efforts to persuade him to write on the subject. As he told a friend, he had "long since lost... immediate interest in that line of speculation".