How is social media changing news?
Social media has collapsed the traditional news industry and turned nearly every person on the planet into a potential broadcaster. For the first time in history, billions of voices can participate in the global conversation in real time. But that democratization comes with a cost: individuals now have to distinguish truth from lies in an environment shaped by deepfakes, troll farms, and large-scale information operations.
At the same time, the constant stream of global crises competes for our attention, pulling our eyes and ears toward events far from our own lives and communities. In this environment, the role of journalism becomes even more important — not just reporting events, but helping people understand what is real, what matters, and what deserves their attention.
Who's your favorite fictional journalist?
Lois Lane. She represents the classic ideal of journalism: relentless curiosity, courage in the face of power, and a commitment to getting the story right even when the stakes are personal. She’s also one of the earliest fictional characters who showed that investigative reporting could be both principled and fearless.
What does it mean to be a journalist?
A journalist is a professional truth-seeker who observes rigorously, asks hard and uncomfortable questions, follows evidence wherever it leads, and makes complexity clear to the public. Journalism exposes incentives and bridges expertise and society, delivering verified clarity amid misinformation, algorithmic amplification, and distortion. Trust is earned through uncompromising accuracy.
How do you prefer to be pitched on stories?
email me
What tools and software do you use to do your job?
I rely on a combination of traditional and advanced tools to conduct thorough, evidence-based work. Primary among them is direct, in-person or virtual engagement with sources through conversations and interviews, which remain essential for context and verification. For research, I employ a wide array of digital resources, including search engines, databases, public records, and specialized platforms to gather and cross-reference information.
Increasingly, I use Grok (built by xAI) to streamline the process significantly. What once required weeks of manual sifting, cross-checking, and synthesis now often condenses into minutes of precise, verified insight. This acceleration enhances efficiency without compromising rigor, allowing faster delivery of accurate, contextualized reporting while upholding the core journalistic commitment to truth and clarity.
What's your favorite social network?
Although I hold a deep aversion to social media in its broader form—due to its distractions, distortions, and often superficial nature—X stands as the indispensable exception. It provides the most immediate access to unfolding events and direct voices from those driving them, bypassing traditional filters and enabling rapid verification through primary sources. No other platform matches its utility for staying connected to what is truly happening in real time. For a journalist committed to evidence and clarity, this pragmatic advantage outweighs the platform's imperfections.
Who do you wish followed you?
I’m less concerned with who follows me than with whether the ideas are worth following. If the work is clear, honest, and useful, the audience tends to take care of itself.
What's the best pitch you ever got?
One of the best pitches I ever received was Bitcoin before it became widely understood. From a money nerd’s perspective, it was fascinating because it flipped the traditional power balance on its head. Instead of money being issued and controlled by a governing authority, it emerged from the collective effort of individuals participating in the network. What started as a niche technology story revealed something much bigger — a new way of thinking about trust, incentives, and who gets to create financial systems.
What's the worst pitch you ever got?
The most disturbing pitch I ever received came from a company promoting digitized currency systems designed to integrate with central banks. Framed as financial innovation, it openly described the ability to remotely freeze or disable individuals’ assets and eliminate financial privacy altogether. What struck me most was how casually it dismissed the ideals of liberty and self-determination. The proposal ran directly against the principles of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness — rights meant to be secured against arbitrary intrusion.
Innovation should not come at the cost of economic independence or personal autonomy without due process. When tools that enable sweeping financial surveillance are celebrated as progress rather than questioned as overreach, journalism has a responsibility to pause and ask harder questions. I declined the pitch.
What's your favorite drink?
Water
