Alex Wilhelm Bets On Substack
June 6, 2024
8:21 am
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SWMS Dossier: Jane Thier, Fortune
May 14, 2024
3:55 am
At 27, she is one of the important Tier 1 journalists in the business. Important certainly to SWMS readers, because no one writes more CEO profiles than Brooklyn resident Jane Thier.
FT Expands Coverage of Tech and VC
April 12, 2024
9:24 am
For most tech PR pros, the Financial Times isn’t top-of-mind. That may change. Last month the FT expanded its San Francisco-based bureau to “deepen its coverage of technology companies, venture capital and the intersection of money and technology.”
SWMS Q & A: Jared Council, Journalist
March 19, 2024
6:38 am
Jared Council is one of a kind. Yes, he covered AI for the WSJ, which is sort of a conventional thing for a good reporter to do. Then things changed. Jared blended what he did with who he was deep inside.
Fortune Enters The CIO Game
February 27, 2024
10:20 am
Who does John Kell write for again? Fortune? Fast Company? Business Insider? Well, all of them. John might have to rein things in starting this week, however, once he starts producing Fortune’s new CIO Intelligence newsletter.
Layoffs Strike TechCrunch
January 30, 2024
8:24 am
TechCrunch suffered layoffs yesterday. At least five editors were affected
TechTarget and Informa Merge To Form ‘New TechTarget’
January 11, 2024
12:19 pm
Tech media changed today with the merger of TechTarget and Informa PLC, which calls itself “a leading international events, digital services and academic knowledge group.”
Q&A: Heather Joslyn, The New Stack
December 23, 2023
12:24 pm
Heather Joslyn is well into her third year at The New Stack, and only a month or so into her tenure as EIC at the most technical tech pub in the business. Yet Heather by her own estimation is not overly technical. How does she do it?
Deep Dive: Eight Narrative Formulas That Still Work
November 30, 2023
10:46 am
Ten years ago last month, we published a list of narrative story formulas that often showed up in Tier 1 publications. Our research back then determined that a small number of edit formulas provided structure for a large number of pitchable, high share-of-voice feature stories.
Pitching The Fortune Five
October 11, 2023
7:48 am
Everyone knows about the Fortune 500. Here’s the Fortune Five — the five reporters that tech PR might want to prioritize.
YOUR ACCOUNT
FRIDGE NOTES
The Media Business Underperforms Other Industries, Badly
February 6, 2025
This is majorly tl;dr, but recent research from FT Strategies and Reuters empirically uncovers every trend there is, when it comes to the health of the media business. In short, “the media” is barely breakeven, here and around the world. AI search may prove devastating.
WSJ Launches CEO Brief Newsletter
February 6, 2025
The WSJ this week launched CEO Brief, a newsletter designed to inform readers, and to attract new members to the WSJ Leadership Institute. This organization is already a Dow Jones profit center, and a great example of how Tier 1 can lessen dependence on advertising. Former Fortune CEO Alan Murray runs the institute and is the nominal editor of CEO Brief — and promises to read every bit of reader mail — though he has delegated the writing of the newsletter to subordinates in the early going.
Lydia Dishman Joins Method Communications
February 6, 2025
Fast Company’s Lydia Dishman has joined (SWMS subscriber) Method Communications as VP of content strategy. Lydia joins an already strong content team, which includes former NY Times reporter Tim Race and B2B tech edit vet John Foley.
Next Out the Door: Forbes’s Alex Konrad
January 31, 2025
“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.
IDG/Foundry: From One Private Equity Owner to Another
January 31, 2025
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.
Key Editorial Union Stands Up To AI
January 31, 2025
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.”