Fri, 2017-11-10 07:24
Sam
Profile: Sean Captain, freelancer, Fast Company
Wouldn’t it be great if all tech journalists were like Sean Captain? He writes about AI, big data and telecom, yet is open to even broader territory — “people and their ideas.” Though a freelancer, he writes principally for Fast Company, squarely in Tier 1.
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The company’s stock has risen 75 percent this year. Jim Cramer interviewed its CEO last month. Things are going quite well at New Relic. It must be the content marketing, don’t you think? Let’s put it this way: it should surprise no one that a successful cloud-based software company invests vigorously in content and hires tech edit pros who have been there.
Stacey Higginbotham — the Stacey of IoT — is enjoying entrepreneurship. “It’s not as stressful as any of my previous media gigs and it’s really satisfying,” says the former Gigaom and Fortune reporter. 
Here's another profile of an unpitchable editor. Stop the madness! Right? Well, we learned quite a bit in our conversation with BuzzFeed senior technology reporter Alex Kantrowitz. He’s an inspirational 30-year-old who more than holds his own in one of tech media’s most powerful investigative shops.
The New York Times has been around since 1851. According to SimilarWeb, the NYT gets 400 million unique visits each month from more than 250 countries. Naturally, PR pros want to plug into this prestige and power — which is why many NYT editors often suspect your motives when you approach them.
If you’re focused on pitching Thomson Reuters tech reporters, don’t forget about their boss, global technology editor Jonathan Weber. Yes, his bylines these days are for editing, not for writing. Jon’s weeknight party-going days are long over, so you won’t see him around. So why get to know the guy?
Few contributed content gatekeepers seek compelling submissions more than Ad Age’s Ellis Booker. He spent 36 minutes on the phone with us, explaining how PR pros can get to “yes.” He sent an email beforehand asking if he needed to prep for the call.
When one thinks of Ken Wheaton, novels might come to mind. Ken has written three of them. If you track his LinkedIn page, you know he’s a contract editor with Think with Google. Odds are, though, you remember Ken from his 16 years with Ad Age. 
Will there ever be another Walt Mossberg? The now retired consumer tech product reviewer was one of a kind. But someone, someday, is bound to emerge as the voice above all others. Don’t be surprised if it’s Bloomberg technology reporter Mark Gurman.
Adrienne LaFrance, staff writer for The Atlantic covering tech, never worked in the trades. She never cranked out three stories a day. Adrienne once worked as an investigative reporter in Hawaii and reported for Boston University’s WBUR. She knows “story” crafted from the ground up.
Alexis Madrigal is back at The Atlantic after 30 months at Fusion. He’ll be covering “technology, science, business and trade,” which for PR pros may sound more promising than it is. Alexis has returned to explore the role of technology in global trade. This in theory includes supply chains, SaaS and the usual B2B suspects.
Here’s what tech freelancer Jaikumar Vijayan has to say about PR pitches. “They are a lot better than they used to be. In fact, I’d say about 70 percent of the pitches I get are great ones. They are succinct. They get to the point. They summarize what it’s all about.”
