Walt Mossberg

Mossberg is from Warwick, Rhode Island, and graduated from Brandeis University and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. His own professional profile identifies his Columbia degree as a Master of Science in journalism.⁠[4][5]

In June 1970, at 23, Mossberg joined The Wall Street Journal’s Detroit bureau. Before moving into technology commentary, he covered labor, wars and national security, including the Pentagon, State Department and CIA. He also served as deputy chief of the Washington bureau.⁠[1][3]

Mossberg began Personal Technology in October 1991, centering his criticism on whether ordinary people could use products successfully. Harry McCracken later identified that consumer advocacy as an important part of his influence on technology journalism.⁠[6]

Mossberg received the 1999 Gerald Loeb Award for commentary. In May 2001, the University of Rhode Island awarded him an honorary doctorate of laws, and he received a National Headliner Award. The doctorate was an honorary distinction for his work, not an earned professional degree.⁠[4]

Mossberg and Kara Swisher launched D: All Things Digital in 2003, interviewing technology and business figures onstage. Their 2013 retrospective counted 11 editions.⁠[2]

AllThingsD launched in April 2007 as a year-round news extension of the conference, with public ethics statements for its writers.⁠[2]

Ken Auletta’s profile recorded Mossberg’s regret over excessive praise for the Power Mac G4 Cube. Lawrence Lessig criticized gaps in his copyright commentary; Mossberg said he deliberately devoted less attention to broader technology policy.⁠[7]

On May 30, 2007, at the fifth D conference, Mossberg and Swisher jointly interviewed Steve JobsSteve JobsSteve Jobs (1955–2011) was a technology entrepreneur, Apple co-founder, NeXT founder, and investor and former CEO of Pixar. His career spanned personal computing, digital music, smartphones and animated films, with an emphasis on product design, user experience and multidisciplinary teams.Open the full entry and Bill Gates. Mossberg later recalled the diplomacy involved in bringing the rivals together. He also described D interviews with Jobs as unrehearsed and subject to a rule against presentation slides.⁠[8][9]

On June 1, 2010, Mossberg and Swisher interviewed Jobs at D8. AllThingsD’s liveblog recorded Mossberg asking why Apple had bought Siri, which he characterized as a search company. Jobs rejected that characterization, describing its work as artificial intelligence and saying Apple was not entering search. The publisher explicitly labeled the record a liveblog rather than an official transcript.⁠[10]

After Jobs’s death, Mossberg described extensive conversations dating from 1997 and advance demonstrations of selected Apple products. He acknowledged that such access partly sought to win a journalist’s support, while recalling disagreements when Jobs challenged his reviews.⁠[8]

In his October 11, 2011 iPhone 4S review, based on roughly a week of testing, Mossberg praised Siri’s handling of natural language and context while describing recognition errors, missing functions and privacy implications of lock-screen permissions. He advised iPhone 4 owners against rushing to upgrade and distinguished software improvements from the value of new hardware.⁠[11]

On December 31, 2013, the founders closed AllThingsD, announcing an independently operated website and conference series for January 2 and thanking their colleagues.⁠[2]

In 2014, Mossberg and Swisher founded Recode, where he served as co-founder and co-executive editor. Their conference business continued as Code Conference, extending their work in live interviewing.⁠[3][12]

Vox Media acquired Recode on May 26, 2015. Mossberg subsequently published columns at both The Verge and Recode and added podcasting to his work.⁠[13][1]

On April 7, 2017, Mossberg announced plans to retire after that year’s Code Conference. He described a considered decision discussed with family and friends, rather than one prompted by his employer or a dire medical diagnosis. His News Literacy Project biography confirms retirement in 2017.⁠[1][3]

His May 25 farewell column anticipated computing embedded in everyday surroundings while calling for stronger privacy and security rules. It was a forecast, not a claim that contemporary assistants or smart environments were already dependable.⁠[14]

Mossberg received the Gerald Loeb Lifetime Achievement Award in 2017. UCLA Anderson’s winners list names The Verge and Recode as his affiliations; the award recognizes career contributions to business, financial and economic journalism.⁠[15][16]

On March 27, 2024, the News Literacy Project announced the election of Karen Wickre as board chair and Mossberg as vice chair, with terms beginning September 15. Mossberg’s statement emphasized confronting misinformation, conspiracy theories and the additional difficulty of assessing truth in the age of generative AI.⁠[12]

His ethics statement distinguished product criticism from financial reporting. He pledged hands-on testing, no favorable coverage in exchange for early access, no compensation or shareholdings in covered companies, and separation of advertising sales from editorial decisions.⁠[17]

As of October 2026, the News Literacy Project still lists Mossberg as board vice chair. His public LinkedInLinkedInLinkedIn is a social networking platform for professionals. It was founded in 2002 by Reid Hoffman and others, launched in 2003, and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2011; after Microsoft acquired it for approximately $26.2 billion in 2016, it became a wholly owned Microsoft subsidiary. Its revenue comes from membership subscriptions, advertising, and recruitment solutions.Open the full entry activity includes sharing material about news literacy, source checking and the organization’s national conference, reflecting his continued participation in public discussion after retirement.⁠[18][5]