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By Jude Cramer (BSJ23)

Casey Newton (BSJ02) is a leading voice in tech journalism and a finalist for the 2020 Ellie Award for Reporting. He’s best known for writing daily newsletter The Interface for The Verge since 2017. Now he’s stepping out on his own, releasing a new newsletter, Platformer, on Substack. I talked with him about his Medill experience, how he fell in love with tech journalism and what the future holds for his career.

How did your education and your experience at Northwestern help prepare you for your career?

There were sort of two phases of me getting into journalism at college. I’d been the editor of my high school paper, and then liked it enough that when I asked my guidance counselor where I should go to college, she said, “Well, if you want to be a journalist, you should go to Medill.” And that was basically it for me. So I visited the school, I loved it, applied, got in and showed up to campus.

All my friends who worked at The Daily Northwestern talked about it as this all-consuming cult. And I thought, “Well, I don’t know if I’m ready to join a cult, I kind of want to enjoy college a little.” So I didn’t start working at The Daily until I was a sophomore, but I completely fell in love with it. I mean, the people who were working there at the time were just the best, most patient teachers. And I really feel like most of the journalism education that I got that I still use to this day, I learned from the other editors at The Daily who would sit down next to me when I, you know, wrote my terrible story about some event, and would just go through it line by line and fix it and teach me that way. So I had a great experience at Medill and Northwestern generally, but it was really The Daily that was at the center of it for me.

Now you’re a pretty prolific tech journalist. What led to your interest in tech journalism? Was that always your intended field?

My first job was covering state and local politics, and I kind of bounced around. I worked for a couple of newspapers. I was hopping from beat to beat. I worked in Arizona for like six and a half years. And then a couple of my friends moved to San Francisco and I visited, and it was just a love at first sight thing where I felt like, “Oh, this is where I should have been the whole time. This is the greatest city in the world.” And so my initial interest had actually just been moving to San Francisco. I spent about two years looking for a job here. 

While I was here, I stopped in and saw some old friends who were working at the San Francisco Chronicle, two of whom had been my former editors in Arizona. Two months after that, one of the editors at the Chronicle called me and said, “Hey, have you ever thought about being a tech reporter?” And I was like, “No, but what would that be?” And he said, “Well, you know, you just move here and write all about Apple and Google and Facebook and whatever seems interesting.” I was like, “That sounds like the greatest job in the world. Like, can I do that?” So they hired me to do it, and it really was the best thing that ever happened to me.

Wow, it’s really amazing how that just fell into your lap almost, and then changed the trajectory of your whole career.

It’s honestly terrifying! I’m more impressed with people who are very intentional about their careers. But this was definitely a happy accident.

So you started at The Verge in 2013, and while there you started a daily tech newsletter, The Interface. Now you’re leaving The Verge to produce your own newsletter with Substack — what influenced your decision to make that move?

I loved doing the newsletter. I wanted to figure out if there was a way where I could do it forever, and it seemed like the best way to do that was to just totally control my own destiny. I felt like the thing I was doing was valuable. People would email me sometimes saying, “I can’t believe this is free. I wish I could pay for this.” And at some point, I thought, “Maybe I should let them.” 

And how is Platformer different from The Interface? How is it the same?

Right now, it looks almost identical to The Interface in content. Each day, I’m still bringing you a column about today’s biggest news and platforms, and I’m bringing you the best links about that subject from the best journalists in the world. And I think that format is going to endure for a while. 

Where I hope that I can start to separate it from The Interface is that there’s just going to be more original reporting in it. In the past, if I had a scoop, I would just put that on The Verge and then the newsletter would be a separate thing. Now, the newsletter itself could be the scoop. 

The hope is that over time Platformer starts to grow in people’s imaginations as, hopefully, the smartest site on the internet about platforms in particular and, you know, maybe a few other things along the way.

Do you have anything to say to your fellow Medill alumni?

I just have so much admiration for people who have stayed in journalism. Journalism is a really hard business to stay in. It tends to attract the most idealistic people that I’ve ever met. And unfortunately, once folks leave college, you’re just met with the cold realities of it being an extremely difficult business where the business models are very shaky, and where your fate is often controlled by a private equity firm, or, you know, someone with no editorial values. And it sucks! And so people leave. And so as a result, we don’t have nearly enough watchdogs for our democracy. And so the cool thing about having gone to a journalism school where there are so many great alumni and so many great students there now is just being part of a community of people who believe in that as an ideal and something worth fighting for.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

As Deputy Digital Director for Joe Biden, Humphrey has successfully directed a mostly grassroots-based online fundraising program.

by Julia Richardson, BSJ23
Graphic by Carly Schulman

At 28 years old, Clarke Humphrey (Medill ’14) is leading the charge on ads, emails, texting and store fundraising for former Vice President Joe Biden’s presidential campaign. As Biden’s deputy digital director, Humphrey is running a historically successful fundraising program fueled by grassroots support.

After she graduated from Northwestern, Humphrey worked as a production assistant at the Democratic National Committee, where she contributed to the DNC online fundraising efforts for the midterm elections. In 2016, she joined then-Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s campaign as digital director for North Carolina.

Humphrey went on to oversee the DNC’s ads program for the 2018 election cycle and worked for Bully Pulpit Interactive, a political ad agency in Washington, D.C., before becoming the DNC’s primary online director. In June, she landed her current position as deputy digital director, a job she describes as “reactive.”

“I would say throughout days, they don’t really look the same, so you are basically dealing with whatever is happening in the world at the time,” Humphrey said. “What I have envisioned my role to be is kind of just doing what I call blocking and tackling, so the folks on my team have the space to run effective programming.”

Leading up to the 2020 election, Humphrey focused on making sure there is enough money to run the Biden campaign’s ads. She also negotiates for resources that her team may need and organizes emails from significant signers, such as former President Barack Obama. She said the campaign has raised a large amount of money in the last few months, allowing for more TV ads and campaign efforts in battleground states.

Although working amid the uncertainties of a global pandemic has been difficult, Humphrey says one of the most rewarding parts of her job is grassroots fundraising.

“This campaign is primarily funded by people who are giving us donations of $200 or less, and that is the program that I oversee,” she said. “Just being in a position where literally millions of people are giving their hard-earned dollars to own a part of this campaign, and power the work that needs to be done. That, to me, is what makes this work really fulfilling.”

Lauren Williams, Humphrey’s friend and former colleague at the DNC, said Humphrey’s ability to build a strong fundraising team while maintaining good relationships is an “underrated skill,” and that she has a unique way of connecting with both supporters and people she works with.

“She takes her work incredibly seriously, but does not take herself too seriously,” Williams said. “All while coming across not as a very stuffy spokesperson, but she comes across as a real person with a bright personality and a sense of humor.”

Shelby Cole, former digital director for vice presidential nominee U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), said Humphrey has especially succeeded at running an ethical fundraising program with messages grounded in truth and reality.

“She, I think, really believes strongly in treating supporters like human beings and not ATM machines,” Cole said. “So, having watched her step into this role and run this program at this scale, as a Black woman to do it, too… I don’t think anyone has ever done what she’s done.”

Although Humphrey is what Cole describes as “the best in the industry,” she did not always plan to work in politics. She said she had envisioned herself as a magazine writer and only considered campaign work once graduation was approaching and it came time for her to apply for jobs.

However, Medill Dean Charles Whitaker, who taught Humphrey and worked with her in NU’s chapter of the National Association of Black Journalists, said her career path did not come as a surprise to him.

“She was always a really strong leader, someone who… I could tell was going to go into politics because she was good at assembling people and rallying them around a cause,” Whitaker said. “(Her position) is a great intersection of things she is good at and is passionate about.”

Humphrey said that her work has allowed her to learn a lot about herself and that she enjoys working in the political space. But she said she hopes to diversify the space going forward, as it still may be difficult for those without money or connections to become involved.

“That affects the work that we’re able to produce,” she said. “We are talking to so many different and diverse groups of people, and the people doing that work should reflect the basic folks that we are trying to talk to, and so one thing that I have learned about myself is that I’m very passionate about getting the space to a place where that actually is true.”

Published Nov. 2, 2020 in the Daily Northwestern

The Medill graduate is now a D.C. city hall reporter for The Washington Post, where he has reported on Black Lives Matter protests and local politics.

By Alex Perry (BSJ24)

Washington Post city hall reporter Fenit Nirappil entered Northwestern with an affinity for writing and left with an interdisciplinary experience that set him up for success.

After graduating, Nirappil interned at the Associated Press’ San Francisco Bureau. After a short stint at The Oregonian, he returned to the Associated Press. He then completed the American University and The Washington Post’s master’s program, where he interned at the Post while getting his master’s in journalism and public affairs.

Now a D.C. city hall reporter for the Post, Nirappil has reported on Black Lives Matter protests and local politics.

While at Medill, Nirappil balanced law and journalism, competing on the mock trial team and writing for “The Protest,” an independent run student publication. During his senior year, he planned on taking the LSAT during Spring Quarter and found an internship for post-graduation.

“I was very deliberate in not doing The Daily while I was at Northwestern,” Nirappil said. “I’m a big believer that your extracurriculars should be outside of your main curriculum.”

Nirappil recalled enterprise reporting in the Ravenswood neighborhood of Chicago during his sophomore year and his ability to report on environments like lesbian bars and wild animal expositions through the projects offered. During his junior year, he participated in the South Africa Journalism Residency program and the Medill Innocence Project.

Medill Prof. Douglas Foster, a faculty advisor for the South Africa program, remembered Nirappil as a humble student who was always open to learning from his peers and the communities he reported on.

“There’s a kind of quality of soft-spoken earnestness,” Foster said. “From the beginning, he was serious about the limitations of journalism and the possibilities in journalism.”

Foster also recalled Nirappil’s tendency to support his classmates instead of competing with them. To Foster, Nirappil was a team builder. When a classmate scooped Nirappil, he would “learn something from it” and apply it to his next piece.

Former classmate Sarah Eberspacher (Medill ‘12) said Nirappil was authentically friendly and open to reaching out to classmates outside of Medill. Eberspacher has known Nirappil since they lived on the same floor of 1835 Hinman and remembers thinking of him as a sociable and confident person.

“I think he takes a lot of pleasure in surrounding himself with a variety of people and learning different perspectives,” Eberspacher said.

This article was originally published in the Daily Northwestern on Nov. 19.

Email: alexperry20@u.northwestern.edu
Twitter: @WhoIsAlexPerry

Graphic by Angeli Mittal