What was your first job as a journalist?
Learning how to do it, specifically structuring ledes.
Have you ever used a typewriter?
Is that another way of asking my age?
How is social media changing news?
The best of times and the worst of times.
Who's your favorite fictional journalist?
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
What does it mean to be a journalist?
Showing up, mostly.
What's the funniest news-related #hashtag you've seen?
Don't know.
How do you prefer to be pitched on stories?
In writing, but phone works, too.
What tools and software do you use to do your job?
notebook diary, pen, laptop, iPhone, email, slack, Google docs, Notes, CMS.
What's your favorite social network?
I don't have a favourable view of any of them. As they claim "we are just platforms ..." forgetting to add, "ripping off content."
Who do you wish followed you?
I don't really care.
Why did you become a journalist?
A collusion of stumbles, luck and Joseph Conrad.
Did you work for your high school newspaper? If so, what did you do there?
Nope
What story are you most proud of writing or working on?
What advice can you offer to aspiring journalists?
Try and leave the ego at the door.
When's the best time to pitch you?
Morning
What's the best pitch you ever got?
A profile of the former head of Japan's Tokyo Electric Power Co. who decided to build a nuclear power plant in Fukushima
What's the worst pitch you ever got?
It was too long to remember.
What's your favorite drink?
iced coffee
When you're not at a computer, where are you most likely to be?
Walking.
Aside from your own, what's your favorite publication to read?
I have several, The Guardian and Economist weekly magazines, thecorrespondent.com, the FT, The Atlantic, New Yorker
What's the most common misperception about your beat?
People blame the journalist because the horror, which was always there, is now in the living room.
