Next Out the Door: Forbes’s Alex Konrad
“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
“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
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

At long last, here’s the SWMS cheat sheet on Forbes contributors. Listed are 66 contributors whose work appeared at least once between Apr. 26 and Jun. 5 in either the AI, the cloud and the enterprise tech section.

Forbes this week began accepting applications for this year’s Cloud 100 List as well as the accompanying Cloud 100 Rising Stars list, which focuses on private cloud startups with less than $25 million in funding.

We’re told by Alex Konrad that the Forbes masthead can be found in each print issue. If you don’t have one handy, here’s a cheat sheet with the names, beats and contact info for 45 Forbes staff reporters and editors.
We heard recently that Forbes has asked its contributors to be clearer about their conflicts of interest, if any. We inquired with Forbes PR about this and did not hear back. In any case, we went ahead and studied Forbes contributor disclosures in the AI space.
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.
Agencies and clients face a reckoning with contributed content. The latter still assumes that opportunities abound. More than 100 entries in the SWMS contributed content gatekeepers list proves them right. Then again, when it comes to Tier 1, it just might be best to pay whoever lifts the velvet rope.
Is the Forbes Technology Council worth the money? We hear that a lot from PR pros looking to place contributed content. In our view the answer is ‘yes’, though there’s actually something bigger going on, which we’ll get to in a sec.
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.