| From The Editor
Let me tell you a story about our news editor.
He's off today, taking a personal day.
Wanna know what he's doing? He's listening to a satellite-dish
salesman make his pitch about the glories of 500 channels.
Bear with me. This isn't just another story about our news editor
being consumed by a hungry satellite-dish salesman. It's a story
about why this guy is our news editor and how he's
insanely dedicated to getting you the best, the most,
the deepest technology news - and getting it to you first. So much
so that today he is listening to that aforementioned satellite-dish
pitch man.
A little back story:
British Telecom is taking over MCI. It's a pretty big story. I'm
sure you've read about it. Anyway, we had the story
in our TechWire first, on Friday afternoon
after we saw unusual movement in MCI's stock price.
Our news editor and his
team jumped on the story that afternoon and stayed with it through
the weekend. They posted literally dozens of updates to the story,
breaking important new details, tracking down the principles and
the analysts who could provide context and analysis, and making
the connections that would give them the scoop when the deal was
finalized.
They were first to break the story that the deal would happen,
first to break the story when it did happen, and they are still at
it, working on stories about what will happen next.
| TechWire was the
first place on the Web you could read the precise details of
the deal. |
Anyway, our news editor pretty much worked the story
round-the-clock through the weekend to ensure that TechWire
readers would have the latest news first. As a result,
TechWire was the first place on the Web you could read the
precise details of the deal. |
|
About that satellite dish. A story like
this one breaks inconveniently. One aspect was a London press
conference scheduled for 5:00 a.m. New York time, Sunday. Our news
editor had the event covered by one of our London correspondents,
but that wasn't good enough for him. He lives for news and the
little matter of an ocean and an ungodly hour of the day was not
going to stop him from witnessing it.
So, first he found out that the press conference would be
broadcast live in the U.S. only on CNN-International. And then he
found out that CNN-International is available in the U.S. only on
satellite.
You see where this is going?
Yup. He found a satellite-dish salesman and convinced the guy to
let him come to the satellite-guy's house Sunday morning to watch.
(I swear!)
One catch. Our guy had to agree to listen to the satellite-guy's
pitch, which is what he's doing right now.
Not all stories are as dramatic as the MCI/BT merger, but they do
have meaning to you. And our news editor and his team of journalists
are committed to finding, analyzing and delivering them all to you -
no matter what it takes.
Jeff Pundyk,
editor-in-chief
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