How tech journalist Swisher holds tech industry accountable

Pavithra Mohan of Fast Company profiled well-known tech journalist Kara Swisher.

Mohan writes, “Swisher, known for being as fearless as she is feared, has chronicled the highs and lows of the tech industry for nearly three decades—first at the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal, then at Recode, the tech publication she started in 2014 with longtime collaborator Walt Mossberg (with whom she also launched the precursor to the Code Conference). In the ’90s and aughts era of more fawning tech journalism, when even media cynics seemed optimistic about the promise of the industry, Swisher surveyed tech with a critical eye—and honed the ability to make CEOs like Mark Zuckerberg sweat profusely. ‘I wasn’t a fanboy—I was a skeptical woman,’ she previously told Fast Company. ‘I think I spent a lot of time shifting people that way.’

“In her capacity as a New York Times columnist, Swisher continues to hold the tech industry’s feet to the fire in editorials about the government wrestling back control from Big Tech, the responsibility of platforms like Twitter in reeling in the former president, and the culture of gender-based discrimination at Pinterest (which included CEO Ben Silbermann’s first public comments on the matter). With her interview podcast Sway, which debuted in September, Swisher has widened the scope of her previous stint as the host of Recode Decode, taking on not just tech bigwigs but a more eclectic mix of business leaders, politicians, and creatives.”

Read more here.