The Verge names Silicon Valley editor

Casey Newton, a reporter at the tech news site The Verge, has been promoted to be Silicon Valley editor, reports Andrew Beaujon of The Poynter Institute.

Beaujon writes, “He previously covered Silicon Valley as a senior reporter, with editors at Verge HQ in New York overseeing his work. ‘What I realized was that Casey had been actually in charge for some time,’ Verge Editor-in-Chief Nilay Patel said in a phone call with Poynter.

“Newton will be charged with taking on ‘the culture and the companies of Silicon Valley,’ Patel said. He doesn’t want The Verge, which he took over three months ago, to approach Valley coverage as a ‘trade publication’ — he named Re/code and Gizmodo as examples of those. ‘It’s the difference between Variety and Vanity Fair,’ he said.

“‘The decisions that are being made here in Silicon Valley are affecting millions,’ Newton told Poynter. ‘We’re thinking of new ways that we can tell those stories.’

“Patel said his publication had 31 million unique visitors in September, and that audience is something Newton plans to leverage when dealing with Silicon Valley’s formidable PR apparatus.”

Read more here.