How to Pitch: The Verge

Really interested in more rigorous reporting on odder, smaller tech stories that can pull out big cultural takeaways.

Public pitch guide

TONE

From the site: “Our original editorial insight was that technology had migrated from the far fringes of the culture to the absolute center as mobile technology created a new generation of digital consumers. Now, we live in a dazzling world of screens that has ushered in revolutions in media, transportation, and science. The future is arriving faster than ever.”

The Verge is really personality-centered and encourages voice-y journalism. Really interested in more rigorous reporting on odder, smaller tech stories that can pull out big cultural takeaways.

STRUCTURE

Online only.

Divided into four major sections: Tech, Culture, Transportation, and Science. Tech is further broken into the gadget blog Circuit Breaker, and the glossier product review section Guidebook. The features and enterprise team operates across sections, and has the largest freelance budget by far.

• Tech: Major coverage areas are Apple, Google, Facebook etc., virtual reality, everything Elon Musk does, apps, some business news. The most highly-staffed section at The Verge, less likely to take freelance work outside of features and original investigative reporting.
• Culture: Major coverage areas are film and TV but mostly through the lens of tech or in sci-fi genre. Currently expanding in internet culture coverage, with a pretty bare-bones team. Lots of potential for freelance there. Also expanding games coverage due to a bit of a petty grudge with Polygon.
• Transportation: Elon Musk. Public transit, scooters and Boosted boards and all that trendy stuff, cars to some extent although less-so now that the Test Drive column has been discontinued.
• Science: Major coverage in space exploration and space studies, all pretty much handled internally. Also serious coverage in health, environment, and energy.

COLUMNS

Not so much columns, but recurring formats include: What’s In Your Bag? (tech), Does it Hold Up? (culture), TLDR (blogg-y, weird stuff catch-all. No longer a specific editor assigned to this though). Most recurring things — like Phone Case of the Month, or Streaming Guide — are handled by the same person each time.

EDITORS

Features Editor: Michael Zelenko
[email protected]

Loves ambitious environment stories with cool photography possibilities and writes a bunch himself (as does his #2, Josh Dzieza). Has published a lot of oddball healthcare stories, and loves a scammer or conspiracy. From July: “Into profiles at the moment, but happy to consider p. Much anything that offers inside look into internet communities and how they operate. The Bhad Bhabie profile is an example of something I want.”

Investigations / Reports Editor: Josh Dzieza
[email protected]

Handles a lot of serious reporting stuff, like prison phone call pricing, China’s censorship of its #MeToo movement, Palantir investigations, things of that nature. Always looking for better sourcing within major tech companies or newer, more secretive tech companies.

Science Editor: Liz Lopatto
[email protected]

Super into scene reporting when it hits a strong, weird science angle. Has a reasonable freelance budget given her small team.

Tech Editor: Natt Garun
[email protected]

The tech team is huge, and Natt doesn’t really involve herself in major reporting projects, so tech features are better directed to Michael or Josh. She has her hands full as the director of the news operation.

Culture Editor: Laura Hudson
[email protected]

Extremely into gaming, and loves, loves, loves, a story that intersects with social injustice. Probably into just about anything that hits on race or gender in gaming or on internet platforms. Not as interested in movie, TV, music stuff.

Internet Culture Editor: Devon Maloney
[email protected]

Recently hired, trying to build a freelance stable. Needs more reporting on YouTube, Reddit, Tumblr, communities on these platforms. Is also personally very interested in music and seems to be trying to weave it back into The Verge.

Film / TV Editor: Tasha Robinson
[email protected]

Extremely open to longform essays about movies, particularly when they tie together several smaller films that weren’t major SEO reviews (those Bryan Bishop pretty much always writes). Covers Netflix, HBO, Amazon, Hulu, FX, closely. Into business stories there too, so long as they intersect with content. Has a big freelance budget.

*Currently without a transportation editor, but can try pitching stories to Josh Dzieza or senior transpo reporter Andy Hawkins [email protected]. He is like, wildly friendly.

PITCHES THAT WORKED

Submitted by: Kyle Chayka

Pitched to: Michael Zelenko

Subject: Future Creative Agency

Pitch: The Museum of the Future

Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum (@HHShkMohd), Prime Minister and Vice President of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, loves the future. He loves it so much that he is building a museum to it, called the Museum of the Future, which is a giant donut-shaped building being constructed in Dubai as a “global innovation center.” The museum will feature a permanent display of exhibits that simulate and suggest what the future might be like for the sheikh’s citizens — automated medicine, 3D-printed homes, virtual sports. It’s a follow-up to the sheikh’s semi-annual temporary Museum of the Future installations, which have been hosted inside the Emirates Tower, for public consumption. “While others try to predict the future, we create it,” Mohammed has said.

The thing about Sheikh Mohammed’s vision of the future, however, is that it is being designed and built by a boutique creative agency that started in Providence, Rhode Island. Or rather, simulations of the technology that the sheikh desires are being built. Tellart does what’s often called “creative coding,” the melding of art and technology into interactive installations and displays, often for brands like Google. It got its start at the Rhode Island School of Design, and after a few breakthrough projects, now works with the world’s biggest companies — including the UAE itself. Beyond the upcoming $136 million Museum of the Future, Tellart is collaborating with the UAE Prime Minister’s office to create a joint agency business with a 50-person strong outpost in the “Office of the Future,” an in-progress 3D-printed structure that is a predecessor to the full Museum. This agency, with the draft name of “The Futures Bureau,” will take commissions from corporations and other governments in the Middle East and beyond.

These projects are a result of Dr. Noah Raford, an MIT alum and an advisor on “futures, foresight, and innovation” at the Prime Minister’s Office. The story of the Museum of the Future is one about how the idea of the future spreads and is made reality. What does it mean that a small, mostly American company is constructing the visionary nationalist future of one of the most socially restrictive yet successful governments on the planet?

With the permanent museum to open in 2018, I’ll explain how the project evolved and profile its protagonists. I have access to Tellart, but I’m optimistic about reaching Raford and possibly Sheikh Mohammed. I think regardless of the level of cooperation, this is a very compelling story about nationalist futurisms and the post-national status of hired-gun creative agencies. Who gets to decide which innovations are made, the creators or their patrons? How is the future being built outside of Silicon Valley and investor capital? (The sheikh is a kind of technological Medici.)

I look forward to also providing a context of different demonstrations countries and governments have given over the course of history that demonstrate their prowess and dominion over the idea of the future, from World’s Fairs to nuclear demonstrations. Perhaps Dubai’s techno-soft power is diplomacy’s latest evolution.

Published: The Future Agency

Rate: ~$1 per word, flat rate, travel expenses paid to Providence

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