How a tech reporter decides what to cover

Rich DeMuro

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.”