NEW YORK (AP) – Shortly after becoming Wired’s global editorial director in 2023, Katie Drummond acted on early morning ideas. With the presidential election coming, technology-focused news outlets had to report the intersection between technology and politics.
She couldn’t predict how much the decision would be rewarded.
Wired has attracted widespread attention to the Trump administration, particularly the active reporting of Elon Musk. Efforts to reduce federal employment. It identified and tracked the background of the younger teams in Mask and how they were digging holes in government activities.
“I think we were very well put up to jump on the report,” Drummond said.
Wired writes about a 25-year-old engineer. Marco Ellesand his vast access Ministry of Finance System It pays government. The story of 19-year-old Edward Coristine, dubbed “Big Ball,” included a story about how staff at a federal cybersecurity agency are.
With a hard hit This week’s workBrian Barrett outlined a week’s worth of mistakes by the young government efficiency team. This forced employees to be deemed belatedly critical, and actually claimed $8 billion in savings on a $8 million project. Barrett wrote: In effect, the CEO of the United States? Very bad. Honestly, it’s embarrassing. ”
Outlet coverage paid off for new subscribers
Wired has attracted 62,500 new subscribers in the US in the first two weeks alone in February. Last year, we reported a total of 19.5 million subscribers for digital and monthly printing magazines, or both. The eight global editions total to 57 million.
Drummond said that when Wired set up a Zoom call to speak to subscribers with journalists, more than 1,000 people signed up.
“This is what hostile journalism looks like,” media critic Parker Molloy wrote on her blog, “the present era.” “Instead of simply transcribing what powerful people say, Wired reporters are digging into what they actually do. They tracked the documents, talked to sources within the agency, and pieced together how the mask acquisition actually works.”
Drummond emphasized that wired is not part of resistance. I’m just reporting it. “This is all newsworthy and very important information,” she said. “This is not information that is spreading in a transparent way.”
Released as a magazine in 1993, Wired was an instant success as a chronicle of Silicon Valley, its people, and its products. It was acquired by Conde Nast in 1998. Drummond’s media career began as a wired intern in 2009 and after becoming Senior Vice Media’s Global News and Entertainment vice president, she returned to Japan.
When hiring three reporters and two editors for the new political team, Drummond said, “The bets we’ve made will make this kind of Venn diagram between business and politics will become increasingly important for publications like Wired To Caber.”
At the time, there were concerns about how technology could help the 2024 campaign flood the disinformation, and Drummond wanted to own the story.
That wasn’t as problem as expected. Instead, Wired writes about the rise in non-traditional media influencers and the increased comfort between the Trump campaign and Silicon Valley executives. In that context, one reporter was told to focus on the mask as a beat.
“Even if we didn’t expect Elon Musk to be a story, we were ready to cover it because of our background (covering) him as a business leader and personality,” she said.
Trump has taken office and there’s musk Assigned to make bold changes In the federal bureaucracy, knowing about the team he worked for became a top priority. It was in the Wired wheelhouse.
Prominent Trump supporters suggest that Wired is a Doxx worker
Not everyone was happy. “Remember when Wired focused on cutting-edge technology and the founders of young college dropouts can change the world?” Conservative influential Charlie Kirk writes in X, including screenshots of wired stories. “No more. Now they’re making Dox a Doge employee and whine “young” and “inexperienced” to reform American government. ”
Jennifer Grigiel, a Syracuse University communications professor with social media expertise, says in this case Kirk is a malicious publication of personal information that can be used to harass someone.
“They are now working for the government,” Grigiel said.
However, in subsequent social media posts, a University of Virginia professor made the names of some of the workers public, urging “Doxx them.” According to the New York Times, Musk replied to the message by writing, “You committed a crime.”
Asked about the criticism, Drummond said, “Our reporting speaks for itself. It is strictly reported and confirmed the facts.”
Initially, she said she was surprised that while the Trump administration’s first month’s news flood was difficult to keep up, it took other news organizations a little while to focus on the type of story Wired was writing. She said she was excited to see others finally jump in.
“What I’m most proud of is that we burned the sights of other news organizations on this particular topic and set our sights on this particular topic,” Drummond said.
And she said, “We’re not going to stop. We’re very committed to continuing to cover the changes that are happening within Musk and the Trump administration and the federal government.”
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David Bauder writes about the intersection of media and entertainment on the AP. Follow him in http://x.com/dbauder and https://bsky.app/profile/dbauder.bsky.social
