Kyle Austin of RacePoint Group interviewed Associated Press national tech editor Brian Bergstein on his blog and came away with some details about the reorganization of the AP business news desk.
Here is an excerpt:
RaceTalk: So congratulations on being named national technology editor at the Associated Press. What will your new role entail? Also, who will you report to and can you share who else makes up the rest of the technology unit at the AP?
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BB: The entire business news desk of the AP, of which the tech desk is part, is being reorganized. Previously we had some nationally based business and tech reporters, including me, but many more reporters were part of local bureaus and organized their coverage regionally. Now that structure is being blown up, and all AP business writers will be part of the national business desk, as I was, and we will organize coverage around beats rather than region. So previously, for example, we had someone in Atlanta covering Delta Airlines (in addition to other Atlanta companies) and someone in Dallas covering American Airlines (in addition to other Texas companies), but now we have a national airlines team. Similarly, you probably encountered Mark Jewell, the Boston business writer, for some Boston tech or business stories. Now he is going to be writing full-time about personal finance, on a national basis. So think of our tech coverage unfolding that same way. We now will have nine technology reporters around the country, in New York, Washington, D.C., Seattle and San Francisco, reporting to me as their editor. Other AP reporters elsewhere can and will still contribute tech stories, but for these nine, it’s their full-time beat. We’ll organize it along certain beats in tech, such as chips, PCs, wireless, business software, and so on. In time it should be much easier for PR people to figure out whom to pitch on a certain story.
Read more here.
