Kara Swisher on Murdoch, Huffington and Pogue

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If you’re interested in tech news, you will find this very interesting. If you’re a media relations professional in tech pr, you’ve just hit the mother lode.

In this podcast, Cathy Brooks, who currently handles marketing for Draper Fisher Jurvetson backed Israeli mobile search app provider DoAT interviews All Things D co-editor Kara Swisher about her tech blog’s personality, the hamsterization of journalism, balancing accuracy against speed in the quest to be first and what makes All Things D different from other tech news outlets.

Kara splits her responsibilities overseeing the coverage of All Things D with Walt Mossberg. 

Kara also discusses:

• The scandal at News Corp’s recently shuttered News of the World
• Rupert Murdoch’s depth of knowledge over his business units and All Things D,
• Her plans to expand their coverage to include gadget, game, and app news and reviews and add another industry conference
• Arianna Huffington’s shill for higher standards in journalism while excluding AOL employee Michael Arrington from their corporate policy that bloggers not invest in companies they cover
• New York Times consumer technology reporter David Pogue was reprimanded for speaking at a PR conference, which I think was a hypocritical comment to make while discussing how to pitch All Things D at a PR conference.  Pogue never “advised” PR agencies.  Reporters speak at PR conferences all the time. I’ve moderated panels of reporters for the Public Relations Society of America and can’t see how any of those sessions compromised anyone’s journalistic integrity. 

By enlightening PR firms about how to pitch, journalists are improving the quality of the information that flows their way, and that’s a good thing.  It means they’ll get better, more impartial content from companies. 

Whether they’re compensated or not, reporters are not obligated to provide coverage.  Is an expert witness less credible because they’re compensated?  What’s wrong with being paid to provide expert testimony? 

This interview was recorded at the PR Summit in San Francisco on Wednesday, July 28, 2011. 

I keynoted the conference later in the day, after this interview concluded. 

The PR Summit Conference SF was produced by Shaun Sanders of Berkeley-based Grafitti PR. 

While this interview was in no way offensive, lewd or obscene, there was some profanity used so please be advised.