Matt Salter
(He/Him)
As seen in:
SlashGear,
MSN,
MSN Canada,
MSN UK,
Yahoo Life,
Aol,
Yahoo Finance,
TechRadar,
Flipboard,
ComicBook,
Yahoo
and
Covers:
Arts, Business, Culture, Cryptocurrency, Finance, Gaming, Technology.
Interview
What was your first job as a journalist?
Contributing to my college literary magazine.
Have you ever used a typewriter?
I have! My family's all in tech: I grew up around all sorts of archaic machinery. Still have a soft spot. There's a tactile charm to analog.
How is social media changing news?
In every respect. It's raised the bar for on-the-spot reporting and opened the floodgates for pernicious bad-faith nonsense, all at once.
Who's your favorite fictional journalist?
Carl Kolchak! Facing down monsters with nothing but a quick wit and a rumpled suit. That's what it's all about.
What does it mean to be a journalist?
To identify stories that shape my readers' lives and show why they matter.
How do you prefer to be pitched on stories?
Any way at all. Get in touch - if you've got something worth saying, I'm interested.
What tools and software do you use to do your job?
Google Docs, copious tea, and a Pandora station of classic funk and soul.
What's your favorite social network?
I'm fondest of Tumblr and Pinterest: those have the best content/toxicity ratio in the business in my opinion.
Who do you wish followed you?
Elon Musk. I've been pretty hard on Mr. Musk, but I truly think a regular dose of truth to power could help him do genuine good.
Did you work for your high school newspaper? If so, what did you do there?
Didn't have one! Itty bitty Catholic high school. Did contribute some truly egregious poetry to our once-a-semester literary digest.
What story are you most proud of writing or working on?
Taking on Monsanto during the Dicamba scandal was some of my best work.
What advice can you offer to aspiring journalists?
Write. Accept no excuses, above all from yourself. Find someone willing to pay for your work and work. Tell the story; the rest is vanity.
When's the best time to pitch you?
Afternoons and evenings for a same-day response. I disapprove of mornings.
What's the best pitch you ever got?
The sky is falling! Analyzing the weaknesses of cloud computing as if disaster were imminent led to deep insight into post-AI future shock.
What's your favorite drink?
Tea. I'm a Southern boy; my entire operation runs on strong iced tea.
When you're not at a computer, where are you most likely to be?
Catching a concert, play or tasty meal somewhere in my beloved Austin.
Aside from your own, what's your favorite publication to read?
I read Reuters daily and like WIRED, Nautilus and The Verge for longform work. Mental Floss delivers some delightful light reading as well.
What's the most common misperception about your beat?
Sturgeon's Law. Across business, tech, culture and the arts, never presume malice when plain cluelessness explains the result.
Would you like to take the Muck Rack Interview?
Create a Muck Rack profile.