Kara Swisher
Kara Swisher
Kara Swisher is an American technology columnist and an author and commentator on the Internet. She created and wrote Boom Town, a column which appeared on the front page of the Marketplace section and online, and subsequently appeared on All Things Digital, which she founded and served as the co-executive editor with Walt Mossberg. On January 1, 2014, Swisher and Mossberg struck out on their own, with a new site, Re/code, based in San Francisco, California...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionJournalist
Date of Birth25 January 1963
CountryUnited States of America
People are worried about what's going to happen to journalism - and they should be. Every day, the blogosphere is getting better and print media is getting worse; you have to be an idiot not to see that.
Wherever you go at SXSW, there you are standing in line. Or watching other people stand in line.
It's the nature of journalism to need to be close to your subjects. And either you're able to be tough on them, which a lot of us are, or you get in bed with them, and some people do.
Sure, I am funny and have a good sense of humor. Mostly, though, I just tell the truth. The internal dialogue people have in their heads - I just write it.
Now I am not against widgets, those small third-party applications that people can put on their Web pages on social networks like Facebook and MySpace, in general.
I think things can surprise you. I mean, I loved Instagram from the minute it started, but I think it surprised a lot of people how quickly it got huge.
Really smart people don't want to say stupid things, and they really don't want to be a part of a PR-engineered interview. People really do want to be smart, and they want smart questions. So, if you ask smart questions, there's no way you can't do well.
People here will date goats. But no one wants to date a goat wearing Google glass.
Our brand is sassy people ripping apart technologists, then going to a party with them.
I used to do a lot of casual photography - back in the olden times when one used film - but it had fallen by the wayside over the years.
Everything is a narrative in life. I learned that early on as a reporter at the 'Washington Post.'
Readers appreciate the truth. Why say, 'Some think a situation is a mess?' Based on my reporting, if a situation is a mess, then I say that. The truth is always what reporters tell each other when they get back to the newsroom.
While a lot of what is on Facebook is a better amalgam of what AOL, Yahoo, Amazon, and other Web pioneers introduced long ago, with a nice dash of connection and really identified community, this kind of thing is not a new idea.
Most reporters are so transactional rather than strategic.