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Walt Mossberg Is Retiring (theverge.com) 37

Walt Mossberg, a well-respected and long-time tech journalist, announced via The Verge that he will be retiring in June of this year. In his announcement post, he starts by reflecting on where it all began: It was a June day when I began my career as a national journalist. I stepped into the Detroit Bureau of The Wall Street Journal and started on what would be a long, varied, rewarding career. I was 23 years old, and the year was 1970. That's not a typo. So it seems fitting to me that I'll be retiring this coming June, almost exactly 47 years later. I'll be hanging it up shortly after the 2017 edition of the Code Conference, a wonderful event I co-founded in 2003 and which I could never have imagined back then in Detroit. I didn't make this decision lightly or hastily or under pressure. It emerged from months of thought and months of talks with my wise wife, my family, and close friends. It wasn't prompted by my employer or by some dire health diagnosis. It just seems like the right time to step away. I'm ready for something new.
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Walt Mossberg Is Retiring

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  • by rmdingler ( 1955220 ) on Friday April 07, 2017 @07:05PM (#54195675) Journal

    And, in the best professional decision of my life, I converted myself into a tech columnist in 1991. As a result, I got to bear witness to a historic parade of exciting, revolutionary innovation — from slow, clumsy, ancient PCs to sleek, speedy smartphones; from CompuServe and early AOL to the mobile web, apps, and social media.

    Walt should be revered for his foresight, and/or, his willingness to bet it all on the fledgling computer revolution. Nice.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    What notable articles has he written? I've read a lot of newspapers and many technical magazines and other publications, but I can't ever remember seeing his name before. I mean, I remember notable articles by journalists and authors like Robert X. Cringely, Roland Piquepaille and Bennett Haselton. But I can't think of a single thing I've ever read that this Mossberg guy has written.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      But I can't think of a single thing I've ever read that this Mossberg guy has written.

      Perhaps you don't remember a single thing Homer or Shakespeare wrote either.

      Cringely produced the print equivalent of clickbait, on a regular basis. I remain appalled that
      Cringely ( IIRC that's not even the guy's real name ) was ever paid for the garbage he wrote.

      Mossberg, on the other hand, was a journalist who was one of the most reliably accurate writers
      of all those who covered tech in the English language. I think you will find that people who have
      been around tech for more than a few years would tend ov

      • by Hylandr ( 813770 )

        Mossberg, on the other hand, was a journalist who was one of the most reliably accurate writers

        Citations please.

  • by InfiniteZero ( 587028 ) on Friday April 07, 2017 @07:08PM (#54195695)

    First time I came across this guy.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

  • I actually saw this before I knew who Walt Mossberg so I my impression of him is probably tainted... https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com] - mrhogg
  • He's a good writer, but I lost respect for Mossberg after he wrote this in 2007: "After months of testing Vista on multiple computers, new and old, I believe it is the best version of Windows that Microsoft has produced." I wrote to him and asked him to explain. He praised the user interface and new security features. Over the years, I noticed that he rarely says anything bad about MS products. That's not journalism; it's shilling.
    • It was pretty and safer than XP, the only problem is it required the best grade of everything. Like its successor, it makes 1024x768 feel cramped while XP was kind of comfortable at 800x600. So, you kind of needed a monitor upgrade if you wanted to fit a file manager and music player side by side. Also, sticks of 1GB DDR1 and 10k rpm hard drives weren't that cheap or common.

  • We clearly have different interpretations of that particular platitude. Mossberg has been an 'old man yells at cloud' columnist for years, and his clear bias when it comes to particular vendors *ahem, AAPL* means that he's had as much relevance for the last decade as the Dead-tree pulp he made his nut writing for. I'm not saying that the New Media replacements are an upgrade, but Mossberg was a relic from the last century who stayed visible by pandering to his tell-me-what-to-think demo.

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