New Wired editor Thompson making changes

Ricardo Bilton of Nieman Lab writes about the changes being made at Wired magazine under new editor Nick Thompson.

Here is an excerpt of their talk:

BILTON: Where are you in that thinking so far? Where do you see Wired’s role both in the tech industry, but also compared to competing technology publications?

THOMPSON: My sense is that Wired is a magazine about how technology is changing the world. It’s about how technology is changing politics, how it’s changing culture, how it’s changing our minds, how it’s changing work, how it’s changing the military. And I want Wired to be the best publication on those topics. When something important happens in that world, I want you to know you can come to Wired and read a great essay on it. I want you to know when you pick up an issue of Wired magazine that you’ll get the best reporting and storytelling about these issues. And I want you to know that when you’re studying something, you can look up and find an article on Wired that will be the best thing you read on the topic.Of course, that’s way too broad for any publication, so we have to chose specialties, which are partly based on who works here, who is hired here. We have to chose our moments to really go after a particular subject. But that’s standard prioritization that editors and writers do.

BILTON:  What are the threads or topics that you think Wired should be focused on?

THOMPSON: Fake news and truth, for one. These things deal with a lot of topics that are core to Wired. We just posted reporting from Macedonia about the folks that write the fake news that has had such an influence on our country. The most-read story on the site today is about scientists trying to defend and make sure we have repositories of data in case the Trump administration tries to remove scientific data, which is a big fear in the scientific community.