The past year has been a roller coaster on all fronts. From personal lives to professional careers, the only thing that has remained certain is the level of uncertainty. While movement in the media space, unfortunately, is far from unique, there have been some more notable moves if you’re in B2B or B2B2C public relations.
eWeek
On April 20, Chris Preimesberger announced he was stepping down as Editor-in-Chief of eWEEK after joining the publication in 2005. Chris has been a foundational figure in B2B tech publishing for nearly two decades, and chances are, if you have had a tech client, you’ve had the opportunity to work with him and are better for it.
Under his tenure as eWEEK editor-in-chief, the outlet changed hands three times from Ziff Davis to QuinStreet to TechnologyAdvice, and he was the sole operator for stretches of time. Although his resignation as Editor was in many ways a shock, it was also a reminder of how many years he artfully dedicated to the success of eWEEK.
Chris will continue to contribute to eWEEK and moderate events, but Datamation editor, James McGuire, will have the task of filling the very big shoes Chris left behind as EIC.
You can continue reaching out to Chris via editingwhiz@gmail.com.
VentureBeat
While still very much in the early days of his career, Khari Johnson spent five-plus years building out VentureBeat’s AI channel, which today represents the backbone of the publication. For that reason, the announcement that he would leave VentureBeat to join WIRED on March 30 drew a lot of attention.
Khari’s VB coverage addressed the good, the bad and the ugly of AI – from ethical implications to societal impacts. We expect this theme to continue as he kicks his coverage off in his new role as WIRED’S senior AI writer, which became official on April 26.
He can now be reached at khari_johnson@wired.com.
TechCrunch
Purchased by Verizon in 2015, TechCrunch has continued to be a leader in VC and startup coverage, and for the large part maintained its position as the proverbial “golden goose egg” of startup tech coverage. Turnover is a mainstay in any field but can peak at a time when internal rumblings of change (and uncertainty) are in the air.
This could be the case once again for TechCrunch. In the immediate lead-up and aftermath of news breaking that parent company Verizon is shopping its media portfolio to private equity firm Apollo, three longtime reporters, Steve O’Hear, Anthony Ha, and Jon Shieber, announced their exodus, the latter two on the same day.
Steve O’Hear was a TechCrunch mainstay, joining the publication in 2009 as an EU contributor, and made a name for himself over the years as a no-nonsense reporter, unafraid of ruffling feathers. Unlike Anthony and Jon, Steve is getting out of the content game altogether and is now VP of strategy at Zapp, an on-demand grocer in the UK.
Anthony Ha joined TechCrunch nearly 10 years ago in January 2012 mainly covering media, advertising and startups, as well as co-hosting the Original Content podcast. Anthony is set to move in-house to VC firm, Eniac Ventures, as their VP of content mid-May, but plans to continue his co-hosting duties on Original Content alongside TechCrunch editors Jordan Crook and Derrell Etherington.
Jon Sheiber joined TechCrunch just a couple years later in January of 2014 covering a wide-range of topics, most recently landing on climate issues. While it is unknown where Shieber will land, he said he plans to continue writing about tech, politics, and culture as they relate to climate change.
While the official word is their choices to leave the publication are in no way related to the potential sale to private equity, the timing does leave you to wonder. Someone who hasn’t been as quiet about his disdain for the idea is Alex Wilhem, dishing out some choice words on Twitter over the last couple of weeks, which you can check out here and here.
Time will be the true test when it comes to the fate of publishers and journalists alike, but each reporter and editor on this list is incredibly talented and will no doubt find endless success in their new roles both in and out of journalism.