08 March 2007

Existential journalist....

Somewhat wizened after years of hand-to-hand technology PR combat, TWL occasionally fails to keep up with the latest comings and goings of technology journalists.

This usually doesn’t matter as, once you’re out of short trousers (in about five years time in Richard Millington’s case), you can generally get away without knowing any journalists by simply saying ‘strategy’ and knowing how to use Excel.

But, of course, there are times when one is stuck alone in a cold office late at night, trying to rustle up a briefing document that includes some background on a collective of journalists that one has never met.

This is when you come across the likes of John-Paul Kamath, newly appointed deputy technology editor at Computer Weekly, as a range of blogs that had cut and pasted from Response Source told me with tremendously little ‘value-add.’

J-PK, like Michael Knight, it seemed, was a man without a history. Just as TWL was convinced that this was a shadowy flight into the dangerous world of a man who doesn’t exist, J-PK’s website shimmered into view.

Exactly how useful the following background on John-Paul Kamath was to the touring US exec of a technology company is debatable, but the briefing doc was complete:

John-Paul Kamath
Deputy technology editor
Computer Weekly

John-Paul (“JP”) recently joined Computer Weekly as deputy technology editor and has the knowledge one would expect of someone in that role. He is very focused on end-user issues – indeed his mantra is “my audience comes first for me in all my work.”

Outside of work John-Paul Kamath enjoys music. His remix and DJ mixes have been broadcast on Xfm and Jazzfm in the UK and on remixes.net and KUCI 88.9fm in the US. America's leading dance magazine, URB, also praised his Late Night London Mix when it was reviewed in its March issue.

John-Paul studied under Barrie Keefe, who scripted The Long Good Friday. He also plans to self-publish his own comic, having secured – it is rumoured – an agreement with Computer Weekly to produce a weekly IT cartoon strip.

JP doesn’t like looking directly into a camera.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Phew! What a relief to discover that JP has "the knowledge one would expect of someone in that role". Talk about damning someone with faint praise. Still, from a female perspective, and judging from the somewhat distorted photo, he's a darn sight easier on the eye than some of the other 'faces for radio' at CW. Are we seeing the emergence of a new breed of IT journo - the Pod Candy hack?

Anonymous said...

apart from having 'the knowledge one would expect in that role' it is not immediately obvious to me exactly how JP managed to land the gig at CW....

Anonymous said...

He was trained by the great Barrie Keefe... the Great Barrie Keefe? Isn't that off the coast of Australia

Anonymous said...

and he's won a competition where he interviewed Dawson Creek "star" James Van Der Forehead

Anonymous said...

When it comes to technology journalism, John-Paul Kamath is like a goddam sexual tyrannosaurus rex - he's got plenty of teeth and is well worth the offer of a reacharound. Way to go JP!

Anonymous said...

JPK is a beautiful chocolate man and I for one would gladly have his babies

Anonymous said...

Ah but telecoms journalist followers know exactly where JP-K came from.... ;-)

Anonymous said...

can't be that difficult to get a job at CW - let's look at this for a moment - they're based in the middle of nowhere, their ad revenues are down, most of the journos there are guys who couldn't really hack it at VNU...so they are screaming for people, with both hooman and mike gone they just got whoever submitted the cv...plus you basically need two qualities to work there - being rude and not able to visit central London ever..

Anonymous said...

I'm not having that said about ALL CW journalists. Bill Goodwin almost went to prison for his journalistic integrity. And he's a nice chap. Stick that up your briefing doc....

Anonymous said...

very good point about Mr Goodwin - a case study in McNae's media law book no less. we salute you

Anonymous said...

What a Nathan!

Anonymous said...

Perhaps he'll add some mash up audio for Cliff Saran's next podcast - will almost certainly be more interesting than the interview itself.

John Anslow said...

JP Kamath is the sort of guy you'd be grateful to have as a friend and loathe to have as an enemy.

I've never known a guy who works as hard at what he does.

Mark my words, JP Kamath is going places !