
SWMS Q&A: Brendan Vaughan, Editor-in-Chief, Fast Company
On the job a bit more than a month, Fast Company EIC Brendan Vaughan has inherited a respected, if not beloved, 27-year-old publication. His mission is to improve it.

On the job a bit more than a month, Fast Company EIC Brendan Vaughan has inherited a respected, if not beloved, 27-year-old publication. His mission is to improve it.

A recent edition of the new Axios Communicators newsletter offered pitch advice from five Axios reporters and a co-founder. Newsletter author Eleanor Hawkins polled her colleagues on what PR folks need to be told.

Experienced B2B reporters often can’t help turning news stories into analysis, where context and POV shroud the actual news. Not so with TechTarget news writer Esther Ajao, now finishing her first year at SearchEnterpriseAI.

“The best surveys are ones that reveal unexpected findings or examine issues that have not yet been widely covered,” says Chain Store Age senior editor Dan Berthaiume.

You may know Bob Safian as the former editor of Fast Company. As good a job as that was, Bob may be on to something even bigger and better…

If you’re younger than 43 years old, Steve Lohr was reporting for the New York Times before you were born. Imagine all the stories he has written… the interviews he has conducted… and all the pitches he has seen.

Unlike most reporters you’ll meet, TechCrunch freelancer Amanda Silberling is no introvert. She truly wants you to understand what she does and why.
Cade Metz is consistent. We interviewed him in 2008, 2012 and 2015. Each time he has carried the same message: though he reports on tech, it’s always about the people. This week we checked in with Cade to discuss Genius Makers, his new book about “the mavericks who brought AI to Google, Facebook and the world.” Again with the people!
Forbes senior editor Alex Konrad gave us a metric ton of insight this month — one article just wasn’t enough. So this week we plumb the notebook of SWMS contributor Rhiannon Pacheco, who interviewed Alex earlier this month, and present the rest of Alex’s thoughtful and heartfelt advice for PR pros looking to win his attention.
Veteran IT freelancer Mike Vizard discusses his views of virtual events, whether he covers enterprise startups, and shares how he thinks of “news” these days. Interview was conducted July 2020.
YOUR ACCOUNT
FRIDGE NOTES
… and rarely reveals it. Roughly 45K opinion recent pieces from Washington Post, New York Times, and Wall Street Journal, are 6.4 times more likely to contain AI-generated content than news articles from the same publications, with many AI-flagged op-eds authored by prominent public figures. Despite this prevalence, Cornell says, “we find that AI use is rarely disclosed: a manual audit of 100 AI-flagged articles found only five disclosures of AI use.”
From WebPro News: Romanian software marketplace Tekpon acquired The Next Web (TNW) from the Financial Times, rescuing the tech media brand from closure.
The day is coming that you will not be able to avoid framing the targets in terms of red or blue. So far you’ve been able to do that. Those days are coming to a close: large swaths of “the audience” are headed in this direction. If you don’t believe it, read this from Bloomberg. You will never see better reporting than this.
Superb reporting from Business Insider on what comes after Google Search. All the experts quizzed. The gist: these technologies and techniques are borderline mythical at this point.
In the latest installment of Sound Thinking...David Strom, a well-known IT reporter and security expert, discusses the threat of AI tricking security systems and luring them to catastrophe. What will that mean to editors? When will it happen? It’s not an if, it’s a when.
Good vision here from Jay Lauf. Interestingly, Jay suggests that B2B publishing will become a service business to B2B pros, providing value directly to individuals and organizations. Static content is dying very quickly. This is the point of the analysis from this great media organization.