Pressing Matters

Sharon Goldman may be one of the most important voices in AI journalism today, but her path there was hardly typical. She didn't even get into reporting until several years after college, and when she did, she wrote for publications covering everything from the jewelry business to marketing to even TV Guide.

But in a semi-serendipitous turn, she joined VentureBeat in 2022, a few weeks before its AI reporter left. She took over the b...

Richie Cotton is definitely one of the more different guests we've had on the pod, and I'm not talking only about his penchant for loud tropical shirts. He's a math guy, or a maths guy, as they'd say in his native England.

He's been a data scientist, a government researcher, and even a math teacher, which follows family tradition. And for the past 10 years, he's worked with DataCamp, an online education site that focuses on data sci...

We've had some Renaissance men and women on the show before, but I'm not sure if anyone can outdo James Maguire, the Executive Director of TechVoices. 

He's a composer and pianist who has recorded an album of original songs. He's the writer of non-fiction books on American culture. He's currently working on a novel. And he's still found time to put together a 20-year run as a tech journalist, including the past 15 months with T...

Chris Preimesberger is one of the deans of tech journalism, known especially for his 15-year run at E-Week, including nearly 10 as the magazine's editor-in-chief. But tech reporting is, in many ways, the second half of his career.

He started in the 70s as a sports writer for the LA Daily News, where he covered a guy named John Elway as a high school baseball player, and later USC, UCLA, and the pre-Showtime Lakers. He did a stint as...

Gene Marks didn't set out to be an influencer. He wanted to follow in his father's footsteps and be a CPA. And he has been for more than 30 years, first at KPMG and now as President of his own business, The Marks Group. 

But some years ago, he offered to write a regular business column for The Philadelphia Inquirer and thus began a whole new aspect of Gene's career. Now, in addition to the Inquirer, Gene writes for Forbes, Inc....

Jeff Burt spent his childhood wandering the world with his Army dad and digging deep into fantasy and horror stories with his mom. They even wrote a few superhero stories together just for fun.

So by the time he enrolled at Keene State in New Hampshire, Jeff was dedicated to storytelling. He split his time writing for the school newspaper, where he rose to executive editor his senior year, and DJing at the school radio stati...

Sean Kinney is yet another one of our guests who had at least one parent, his mother in this case, who was a school teacher. That's clearly a theme for journalists. What's a bit new this time around is that his mom later went into the insurance world, along with his dad, asking the tough questions to get to the truth of the matter, just like a reporter does.

Sean does the same, just as an analyst and as a journalist. And with Mobile...

Jon may not be a philosopher, but as a writer, analyst, and podcaster, he certainly has the trust of the B2B community. Jon joins Pressing Matters to tell us about his mission to disrupt B2B tech media and analysis, his thoughts on the high percentage of AI hype versus reality, and how he's managed to live in Massachusetts for more than 30 years without picking up an accent.

Welcome to Pressing Matters from Big Valley Marketing, the...

Emilia David comes from a long line of journalists. Her late mother, in fact, was a well-known and controversial Filipino political columnist. Her writing helped usher in women's reproductive rights in one of the world's most religiously conservative countries. So it was no surprise that Amelia got into journalism. Tech journalism, particularly AI, and in the United States, well, that's a much longer story. 

Emilia joined us to...

In more than three decades covering technology, John Swartz has met a lot of people: engineers, journalists, CEOs, and he's got a story for all of them. As a student at San Jose State, he was part of a newspaper staff that was led by AP's Mike Lidke and included at least a half dozen other pioneers in tech journalism. As a reporter for 17 years at USA Today, he witnessed online advertising's slow but inevitable impact on a once maj...

Back when Maribel Lopez left Forrester and became an independent analyst in 2008, she was taking a great risk. Independent analysts were not the force they are today. Social media was just getting going, blogs were still in their infancy, and podcasts were still called online videos. 

But today, in part because of Maribel's pioneering work in the field, independent B2B tech analysts thrive. And Maribel is a great example. Yes, ...

We all know the internet has significantly impacted media's business model over the past three decades, and the conventional wisdom is that AI will do the same. Many believe it will replace reporters, lead to computer-generated news stories, increase misinformation, produce more fake news, and generally make a struggling industry even worse. But what if the opposite is true? What if AI can free up reporters' time to do the kind of ...

Whatever stodgy image you have in your mind of the typical finance news reporter, I guarantee it isn't Allie Garfinkle. And yet still relatively early in her career, Allie has established herself as one of the best in that business with a resume that includes Forbes, The Deal, Yahoo Finance, and of course Fortune, where she serves as senior finance reporter, co-chair of Fortune Brainstorm Tech, the lead writer for Fortune Termsheet...

This week, we're highlighting another great podcast, Misadventures in Marketing, that is produced by our friends at the American Marketing Association San Francisco (AMASF).

In this, the 4th episode of Misadventures in Marketing, hosts Steve Haney and Peter Farago dive into the fun-filled world of corporate messaging, start-up style. They discuss the importance of creating a messaging house, understanding customer pain points, and t...

Annie Saunders has been a tech journalist for several years now, but her diverse career background, local news, commodities, food, had her questioning why we'd even invite her on this show. No need to question yourself, Annie. Generalists make great tech journalists, as is evidenced by the reporting on AI, EV transportation, and climate tech for Morning Brew's Tech Brew, where Annie serves as editor. 

She's a lifelong Pittsburg...

Julie Bort has been in tech journalism long enough to have had not one, but two tenures of 13 plus years – first at Network World and then at Business Insider, now editor of VCs and startups at TechCrunch. You might be surprised to learn that one of the most prolific voices in B2B Tech reporting nearly became a teacher, and you'll definitely be surprised to hear that she and her husband gave it a go at being scuba bums (her t...

Jeremy Owens just landed a new gig as the latest editor in chief of the San Francisco Business Times. In this market, that's a minor miracle. Jeremy joined us to talk about that change, his early plans for the outlet's mission, and why he thinks San Francisco is the New Orleans of the West. 

That's a new one for this episode of Pressing Matters from Big Valley Marketing, the podcast that brings you conversations with the top me...

Are you ready for RSA 2025? Matt Kapko of CyberScoop is, and he definitely doesn't want to hear about AI, although he and I–and everyone listening to the podcast today–all know he will. In addition to AI, Matt joined us to talk about his early days singing in a punk rock band in Orange County, his time in a string of hyperlocal newspapers, and more of what he expects from RSA for our annual conference preview episode of...

Fred Vogelstein wanted to be a Moscow bureau chief. He did manage to get to Berlin as a student in the months after the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, but he still hasn't been to Moscow. Instead, Fred became one of the most influential technology reporters of his generation, with stints at the Wall Street Journal, Wired, The Information, US News, and Fortune. Today he and fellow tech legend Oh Malik are the Co-Founders and Editors of Cr...