Meredith Klein of Meredith and the Media interviewed Rich DeMuro, tech reporter at KTLA 5 Los Angeles and host of “Rich on Tech Radio Show.”
Here is an excerpt:
- As a tech reporter, you produce and host a daily technology-related segment on KTLA 5 in Los Angeles. What’s driving your coverage?
- It’s a tricky situation because I am based at KTLA, but my segment is syndicated to dozens of stations nationwide as part of our affiliate. That’s been a challenge— to figure out how you do this on a scale that feels local, but also feels local in these other cities where people are watching it.
- There are two types of stories that I do. One is the national stories. And then we have some days where we do just local updates. What drives it goes back to people. I think about the people watching the segments. I keep in mind people’s budgets. I keep in mind what people actually need to know. There’s so much out there when it comes to rumors and speculation. I always say on my radio show, “This is the show where I talk about the tech stuff I think you should know about.” Same thing with my TV segment. The average person is not keeping up with all of this stuff. They’re busy living their lives.
- So I am busy keeping track of everything happening in the tech world and saying, “OK, let me distill this down for the person who is not a tech nerd, is not a tech genius.” This is the average person that is watching the news. They see my segment, and they’re like, “Oh, that’s good to know. I should change that setting on my iPhone,” or, “Oh, that’s a cool new gadget. That’s something I could buy for someone or get for myself.” So that’s really what drives it: what people need to know, and what I think they should know.
- When it comes to pitching, there are ways of making stories of national interest. Things that happen in Los Angeles are broad in general. Things start to trend in a city like LA. A good example is Postmates. When that launched, it was game-changing, like Uber when it launched. These are things that were not in other cities that I was covering when they launched, but they ended up going to all those other places. One way of putting it when pitching me is: “Here’s a trend that we’re seeing here. It’s probably going to come to your city, too.”
Read more here.
