TechCrunch Calls Out Quartz For Its Crummy AI Stories
January 29, 2025
5:45 am
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
>> TechCrunch
TechCrunch Layoffs
January 15, 2025
5:39 am
Less than ten individuals were impacted, says a Jan. 15 report in Business Insider. Monitor Fridge Notes for the names as they become known.
Layoffs Strike TechCrunch
January 30, 2024
8:24 am
TechCrunch suffered layoffs yesterday. At least five editors were affected
TechCrunch Surveys Readers To Set Course For 2024
November 13, 2023
7:55 am
TechCrunch last week fielded a reader survey built to define what TC readers see in 2024, and perhaps, how many editors produce it.
Our Q&A With GPT-4 About Kyle Wiggers
November 12, 2023
8:39 am
The following is a “conversation” between SWMS and GPT-4 regarding recent work from TechCrunch senior reporter Kyle Wiggers. It has been edited for length and clarity, as we do our Q&As with humans.
Google Bard: ‘TechCrunch Was Better Than ZDNet and The Verge’
November 8, 2023
11:30 am
Ever go to Techmeme and wonder which article is “the best” on a given topic? Generative AI can help answer that question. We looked at news published this week from ZDNet, TechCrunch and The Verge…
Connie Loizos Succeeds Matthew Panzarino As TechCrunch EIC
August 30, 2023
6:04 pm
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‘Fellows’ and ‘Interns’ Make Great Targets
February 27, 2023
8:12 am
Most PR pros categorize targets by beat, then by publication. There’s another way — by experience. The rookies are happy to be where they are. And quite often they are friendly toward PR, especially when you appear to know a little bit about them.
Profile: Amanda Silberling, TechCrunch freelancer
February 28, 2022
11:17 am
Unlike most reporters you’ll meet, TechCrunch freelancer Amanda Silberling is no introvert. She truly wants you to understand what she does and why.
Sage Advice from Nine Contributed Content Guidelines
June 18, 2015
10:45 pm
You send us lots of rejected contributed content, asking what went wrong. Sometimes we can spot a path forward, but it’s heartbreaking to hear that “the client wants it written this way” or “this has already been approved.” That’s why this week we studied nine sets of contributed content guidelines from top edit targets and packaged what we think is their most valuable advice.
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.”