Tech Columnist Walt Mossberg to Leave WSJ

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323308504579085663273991706.html

by gnicholas • 13 years ago

48 27 13 years ago

online.wsj.com

larrys• 13 years ago

Essentially Mossberg and Kara Swisher needed the WSJ affiliation more than WSJ now needs them. Should be interesting to see how much power they wield going forward.

tesseractive• 13 years ago

To whatever degree the Journal made the decision, I expect it was either over cost or over their desire to have more control over their own technology coverage.

ATD has a pretty huge following, and I can't imagine that they will have any trouble driving plenty of traffic and/or signing up a new partner without the Journal.

benologist• 13 years ago

ATD are a pretty big brand at least in startups now, they've been visibly out-scooping TechCrunch et al all year - all the Yahoo stuff including Tumblr broke through them, Google's massive investment in Uber, Rakuten's $200m acquisition of Viki etc.

Steko2• 13 years ago

Felix Salmon last month with an appreciation of Kara/AllThingsD and some insight into the neogtiations:

http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2013/08/27/can-rupert-...

shawndumas• 13 years ago

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...

gnicholas• 13 years ago

Thx for the non-paywalled link—you can see why Mossberg & team might look forward to parting ways with the WSJ.

If a tree falls in a paywalled garden, does it make a sound?

bstar77• 13 years ago

You can take advantage of google's first click free to read the article in its entirety. Just search for the headline in google and voila, the tree will smack you in the face.

nateabele3• 13 years ago

Apropos of nothing, I just wanted to drop by and reiterate that Kara Swisher is in the running for the most obnoxious person on the planet (don't forget to cast your votes!).

I hope she dwindles into obscurity (finally).

nhebb• 13 years ago

I've only read a few of her pieces, and they seemed like straight up journalism. What's obnoxious about her?

001sky• 13 years ago

What's obnoxious about her?

Anything she writes about melissa meyer...

Google it. er, no pun intended.

danilocampos2• 13 years ago

Hunch: her temerity in possessing both opinions and a vagina at the same time.

m_mueller• 13 years ago

I think her interviewing behavior is what makes people hate her that much. Watch the Bill Gates plus Steve Jobs interview to get an example. She constantly wants to push some prepared narrative rather than being open minded about what the interviewees say. Sprinkle that that with some weird, inappropriate sexual innuendo and the problem increases exponentially. Her articles may be much better, however I've never read much of her.

chad_oliver• 13 years ago

To be honest, your behavior is rather obnoxious. It's exactly the sort of bullying behavior I left behind when I left primary school.

Let people make their own decisions about others; there's no need to spread nasty opinions.

mbetter• 13 years ago

Oh, go fuck yourself.

nateabele3• 13 years ago

Retract that comment until you can sit through the entirety of any AtD interview involving her and Steve Jobs without pulling your hair out and/or smashing things. They're the most grating pieces of 'journalism' (of any sort, let alone tech) that I have ever had the displeasure of suffering through.

rplst82• 13 years ago

I've never been a fan of Mossberg or Swisher. I think their interviews of tech icons, lack insight into the fundamentals of technology, which is evident in their questions and followups. I actually think there is still a pretty big hole for quality tech journalism. Ars Technica used to be a lot better than it is now, but has fallen prey to the press release and tech media buzz news cycle, much like Engadget and others. Though, I do appreciate their continued coverage of tech privacy, policy, and law issues - which is lacking nearly everywhere else.

Technology and how it affects our lives is a huge nebulous topic, which grows larger each year. I hope some sort of real journalism takes root to provide meaningful insight, investigation, and commentary/opinion.

auctiontheory• 13 years ago

I used to not like Mossberg because he doesn't understand technology, and because he gave low ratings to the products I worked on, which were challengers rather than market leaders.

Over time I've come to realize that he did a pretty good job of understanding and speaking to his audience of non-techie businesspeople, whose priority is to find something that "just works," regardless of hardware specs or technical elegance.

Mossberg readers don't tend to be HN readers, but they do represent a much larger market.

rplst82• 13 years ago

I can't argue with your conclusion... But that misses the point that their (Mossberg and Swisher) brand is called "All Things Digital". It's trying to be tech press, when it's really just journalism for non-techies about tech.

I probably dislike the pair for the same reason my wife who is a physician dislikes the "medical corespondents" on the major news networks.

In any case, I see their coverage as cheesy and irrelevant to actual technophiles.

acjohnson55• 13 years ago

Making room for a new face?

http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2013/09/04/manjoo-joins-wall-str...

xanth• 13 years ago

But who will report for the apple fan-boy.

lnsignificant• 13 years ago

Gruber?

PhantomGremlin• 13 years ago

"This is Walt Mossberg. Shut up!"

I miss Walt Mosspuppet. The videos were very funny. I wish the guy would do more.

stephenaturner• 13 years ago

Interesting. Seems from the link they don't own AllthingsD even though it's very much their thing. I presume they'll be negotiating with another company to start up something new but similar. Not unlike Nate Silver leaving the Times, except he owned his brand and site so could take it all with him.

Tech Columnist Walt Mossberg to Leave WSJ

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