Jeff Elder
(He/Him)
- Senior Manager, Social Media Lead, Palo Alto Networks
San Francisco
As seen in:
Medium,
Business Insider,
Business Insider Singapore,
HuffPost,
MSN India,
The Wall Street Journal,
MarketWatch,
SFGate,
Chron,
Yahoo
and
Covers:
None—I'm not a reporter anymore.
Doesn't Cover:
I do NOT cover NFTs, crypto, cyber, or anything else anymore.
Screenwriter, #SFGiants fan, cat lover. Former Knight fellow at Stanford, investigative reporter at WSJ. Briefly the world’s worst bouncer.
Interview
What was your first job as a journalist?
I shot photos for the Stanford Daily when I was 15.
Have you ever used a typewriter?
Yes, as a young reporter. I vividly recall writing a review of "Taxi Driver" on a Corona electric for The Stanford Daily.
How is social media changing news?
It's making it much, much faster - and more shallow.
Who's your favorite fictional journalist?
Peter Fallow, the has-been, alcoholic journalist for the tabloid City Light in Tom Wolfe's "Bonfire Of The Vanities."
What does it mean to be a journalist?
Tell the truth when people don't want you to.
What's the funniest news-related #hashtag you've seen?
How do you prefer to be pitched on stories?
Slyly.
What tools and software do you use to do your job?
iPhone, Macs, Tweetdeck, WordPress.
What's your favorite social network?
Twitter. That's why I have 100K followers.
Who do you wish followed you?
On Twitter? Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber.
Why did you become a journalist?
I didn't intend to, but in a family of journalists I just grew into one.
Did you work for your high school newspaper? If so, what did you do there?
I was the features editor for The Campanile at Palo Alto High School.
What story are you most proud of writing or working on?
Breaking a story from the National Institutes of Health on how stress is reconfiguring American brains to be more prone to depression, which has devastated the lives of people I love.
What advice can you offer to aspiring journalists?
If you don't have to do it, don't. Have a normal life. If you belong on the pirate ship, avast ye miserable cur.
Would you like to take the Muck Rack Interview?
Create a Muck Rack profile.