Joanna Stern’s ‘New Things’
It was reported by Talking Biz News in early February longtime Wall Street Journal (WSJ) personal technology columnist Joanna Stern was leaving the storied outlet. Stern had been with the WSJ since 2013, fortuitously the same year I started working in media.
“Joanna’s been a brilliant colleague on our tech beat and on our video team, bringing a sharp, unmistakable energy and voice to our coverage,” Emma Tucker, the WSJ’s editor-in-chief, said in a statement on Stern’s departure. “We’ve loved her distinctive take on the industry, and while we’re sad to see her go, we’re delighted that she’ll continue to contribute for us and we wish her the very best as she heads off on a fresh new adventure.”
Life gets busy, so we don’t connect as often as we’d like, but Joanna has not only been a years-long peer of mine in tech journalism—she’s also become a close friend. I’ve been an admirer for her work for so long, and her mine; we’ve seen each other at many Apple events over the years and have been in briefings together, sitting across the table from one another. We even shared a selfie together from an Apple Park golf cart during WWDC a couple years ago. That’s the personal and professional camaraderie, but Joanna’s also long been an advocate of accessibility in tech and the industry-wide efforts to continually make technology ever more empathetic and inclusive to all.
As her friend, I feel compelled to plug Joanna’s new thing: New Things. She has a newsletter, a YouTube channel, a forthcoming book, and even editorial standards. I’ve admittedly been lax on pre-ordering the book for terrible, no-good, very bad reasons, but I have subscribed to Joanna’s channel. I highly recommend doing all three posthaste, and I also highly recommend watching her video (embedded below) wherein she explains why she decided to leave the Journal to go at it independently.
Incidentally, this week marked my 13th anniversary as a journalist—all indie. I’m neither as cool nor well-known as Joanna, and probably never will be, but nonetheless very proud of the trail I’ve blazed in making accessibility a bonafide beat in tech journalism.
