Humanising tech with The Australian’s David Swan
“We have a hard paywall at the Australian. It means that bar is pretty high in terms of me taking the time to tackle something and go really in depth with it. And that often means…if there's a new story, it probably has to be exclusive to us.” – David Swan, Technology Editor, The Australian
Considered a rock star among the tech PR peeps, Technology Editor at The Australian David Swan has an uncanny ability to turn the technical into the connectable.
“I used to write for a technology news website for IT professionals, so I could use jargon and get away with it,” David explains.
“Now, anyone on the street could be picking up the Australian and reading one of my stories. So I strip back that tech and say, ‘what will this actually do? What, what will it be used for how it'll be used? How will it impact society?’ The other thing too is every founder I interview has an interesting story about how and why they founded the company – sort of like a superhero origin story, a little bit like Batman or Superman.”
Co-hosts Jo Stone and Greer Quinn also probe into the X Factor elements that make David say “yes” to a story within his turf of start-ups, business and technology.
“We really need a news hook,” David said. “I think readers are pretty savvy and know when they're being fed more of an ad or a PR pitch. It has to be a really genuine news hook…it's one of those things where you kind of know it when you see it.”
David also discusses some of the media conventions such as exclusives, embargoes and “first dibs” and why transparency is imperative when using these strategies.
Keeping up with Season Three’s ‘news values’ theme, the Darlings explore the value of “timeliness”, which is all about injecting the new into the news.
It’s PR Darlings is produced by Jo Stone from Sticks and Stones PR and Greer Quinn from Forward Communications.
Episode link - Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/humanising-tech-with-the-australians-david-swan/id1549334086?i=1000566146744
Episode link - Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/1Bn0zsW9ckuGUe9QLEyl6f?si=LcDVxO58R-eYN7iHZqfxnw
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