One can see Morning Brew’s overall ambitions in one of its most interesting franchises, Emerging Tech Brew. It has published deep-dives on smart cities, digital health and “the web of the future,” and tutorial “guides” on AI, autonomous vehicles, drones, the cloud and virtual fitting rooms.
Launched in May 2022, IT Brew is learning what it is. In the early going it is very much a twice-weekly cybersecurity newsletter. Last month, 14 of 17 articles focused on the topic. Each of the 14 was deeply reported, with lots of quotes and links.
YOUR ACCOUNT
FRIDGE NOTES
“I’m leaving to build something new,” Alex posted on X today. He spent 12 years at Forbes as a reporter and a builder of databases and lists. It’s time he gets to keep the money.
Axios reported on Jan. 24 that private equity firm Blackstone will sell IDG/Foundry, publishers of InfoWorld, Computerworld and Network World (and owners of IDC) to another private equity firm called Regent, which bought streaming video channel Cheddar in 2023. Remains to be seen how the ownership change will affect IDG’s venerable IT titles, but it’s unlikely their budgets will go up.
Unionized writers have secured new protections governing the use of generative AI in member newsrooms, reports the Hollywood Reporter. The union — Writers Guild of America, East — represents Fast Company, Wired and many other prominent titles. The union won agreement that publications “will not lay off current staff employees due to the use of generative AI,” and also that “advance notice [must be given] if the company plans to make the use of generative AI systems a requirement of [editors’] jobs.”
TC’s Rebecca Bellan finds fault with Quartz for how poorly its AI rewrote a recent story of hers. Quartz doesn’t attempt to hide its use of AI. This will be the year everyone assumes that all publications use AI one way or another, and few if any people will come to care.
Dr. Diane Hamilton has posted 37 articles on Forbes’s CHRO Network page since Dec. 1. She has an active LinkedIn profile, which advertises a book she wrote. But her X feed and her personal web page both seem to be down. The Dr. happens to be founder and CEO of Tonerra, a company that specializes in content creation, among other things. Strange, then, that Tonerra has no web site of its own. If you happen to see Dr. Hamilton, ask her to call her service.
Today’s Press-Gazette has a fascinating interview with Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson, who left the FT to launch The CEO Signal, a weekly newsletter built for CEOs of companies with annual revenues of at least $500M. You can apply to receive it here.
