Prior to his broadcasting career (and continuing throughout), Bensky worked as a print journalist and editor. He worked at the "Minneapolis Star-Tribune" after college, while attending graduate school at the University of Minnesota. He then worked as an editor at Random House, before moving to France, where he was Paris editor of "The Paris Review" from 1964 to 1966. He then returned to New York as an editor of "The New York Times" Sunday Book Review, and also wrote daily book reviews. His views on the war in Vietnam were not well received by editors of the "Times", and several of his reviews and features were rejected. In 1968, he moved to the San Francisco Bay Area to take over as managing editor of the radical, anti-war publication, "Ramparts" magazine, working closely with editor-in-chief Robert Scheer.