NY Times hires BuzzFeed’s Alba to cover tech

New York Times business editor Ellen Pollock and technology editor Pui-Wing Tam sent out the following announcement on Friday:

We’re thrilled to announce that Davey Alba is joining The New York Times as a technology reporter covering disinformation and all of its tentacles.

Davey most recently was at BuzzFeed News, where she reported and wrote about A.I. as part of a broader beat on the invasive effects of tech into our lives.

One of her standout pieces was a story in which she laid out how Rodrigo Duterte, president of the Philippines, used Facebook to fuel the drug war in the archipelago country. The story won Davey a Livingston Award this year for excellence in international reporting, with Ken Auletta saying of the work: “Davey Alba’s reporting brings home the immense power of digital platforms.” The story also won a 2019 Mirror Award for best story on journalism in peril.

Much of Davey’s knowledge of tech was accumulated over years of working at Wired, Popular Mechanics and Gizmodo, during which she wrote about topics as diverse as the effects of algorithms on people’s lives and gender discrimination in the tech industry.

Davey, who recently moved back to New York after several years in the heart of Silicon Valley’s tech industry, grew up in Manila. She moved to the United States in 2010 after attending De La Salle University in Manila and has a masters in science journalism from Columbia University.

Davey will take story tips in Tagalog and is a big fan of the fast food chain Jollibee, which has brought Filipino-inspired food closer to many of us. Fortunately for her, there is a Jollibee near the Times building.

She starts at The Times next month and will be based in New York. Please join us in welcoming her aboard.