Journalist and former editor-in-chief of WIRED and MIT Technology Review
Independent
Gideon Lichfield has spent 28 years as a journalist because he never figured out what else to do. He has been a science writer and foreign correspondent for The Economist, one of the founding editors at Quartz, editor-in-chief of MIT Technology Review, and global editor-in-chief of WIRED. Those whose stories he has edited remember him with a kind of fond terror. He speaks five languages fluently and three well enough to fool some people. He is obsessed with science fiction. He is proudly queer, Jewish, and short. He once persuaded his editor to send him to Azerbaijan to cover the Eurovision song contest on the grounds that it was an important geopolitical phenomenon (yes, really). He rejects mind-body dualism but is fascinated by near-death experiences, and believes there are aliens but we will never meet them. He absolutely refuses to debate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict but almost certainly knows more about it than you do. He has taught journalism at NYU, leaving his students permanently mystified, and edited the science-fiction anthology "Make Shift: Dispatches from the Post-Pandemic Future," leaving his authors permanently scarred. He has written, but failed to publish, a book about Palestinian drag queens. He apprenticed as a cocktail bartender and has strong opinions on the proper use of ice and the right way to make a Negroni. If you are looking for him in a crowd, he will be the guy wearing far too many rings.
Gideon believes that even as democracy is backsliding all around us, its future is already being created. He now writes a newsletter, Futurepolis, about the people, ideas, and movements reinventing democracy for the 21st century.
Luncheon — Beyond Hype & Alarmism: Elevating AI Coverage in the Newsroom
Thursday, September 19, 2024
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