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David Pogue

From Alfawiki
David Pogue
Born (1963-03-09) March 9, 1963 (age 63)
Shaker Heights, Ohio, U.S.
Occupation(s)Author, technology writer, television host, correspondent
Years active1988–present
Known forTechnology and science writing; CBS News Sunday Morning correspondent; Nova PBS specials; For Dummies books; Missing Manual series

David Welch Pogue (born March 9, 1963) is an American author specializing in technology and science, as well as a television host and correspondent for CBS News Sunday Morning.

He has presented 18 Nova specials on PBS, including the series Nova ScienceNow, the Making Stuff installments (2011, 2013), and the special Hunting the Elements (2012). Pogue has written or co-written seven books for the For Dummies franchise and initiated the Missing Manual computer guide series in 1999, which now comprises over 100 volumes. His other notable publications include The World According to Twitter (2009) and the New York Times bestseller Pogue's Basics (2014).

In 2013, Pogue departed from The New York Times to join Yahoo!, where he developed a consumer technology website. He returned to the Times in 2018 to contribute the "Crowdwise" column in the "Smarter Living" section.

Early years

Hailing from Shaker Heights, Ohio, Pogue is the son of Richard Welch Pogue, an attorney who formerly served as managing partner at Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue, and Patricia Ruth Raney. He graduated summa cum laude from Yale University in 1985 with a Bachelor of Arts in music and spent about ten years intermittently working as a conductor and arranger for Broadway musicals.

Career

From 1988 to 2000, Pogue contributed to Macworld magazine, writing the back-page column titled The Desktop Critic. His entry into book authorship began when Macworld publisher IDG commissioned him to write Macs for Dummies, following the popularity of Dan Gookin's DOS For Dummies.

Beginning in November 2000, Pogue served as a personal technology columnist for The New York Times, with his weekly "State of the Art" column featured on the front page of the Business section. Additionally, he penned the tech opinion column "From the Desk of David Pogue" and maintained a blog named Pogue's Posts.

Since 2002, he has been a correspondent for CBS News Sunday Morning, reporting on topics including technology, science, environmental issues, and entertainment.

Between 2007 and 2011, he appeared on CNBC's Power Lunch delivering a three-minute comedic tech review segment that was also syndicated on platforms such as nytimes.com, iTunes, YouTube, TiVo, and JetBlue.

In 2007, Discovery HD and Science channels broadcast his six-episode series titled It's All Geek to Me, which focused on consumer technology tutorials.

From 2010 through 2019, Pogue authored the monthly "Techno Files" column for Scientific American.

He hosted multiple PBS Nova miniseries: "Making Stuff" (2011), a four-part exploration of materials science; followed by the two-hour feature "Hunting the Elements" (2012); "Making More Stuff" (2013); and "Beyond the Elements" (2021), which examined molecules and chemical reactions fundamental to life and civilization.

Pogue’s December 2022 segment for CBS Sunday Morning raised concerns about the safety of the Titan submersible. The report received widespread attention after the vessel went missing in June 2023 with five occupants aboard.

He frequently speaks at conferences related to education and government on topics such as disruptive technologies, social media, digital photography, and product failures. Pogue has presented at TED conferences three times: in 2006 discussing simplicity; in 2007 performing high-tech song parodies; and in 2013 sharing vital technology advice. In addition, he spoke at the EG conference in 2008 about cellphone technology and marketing strategies.

Consumer advocacy

In July 2009, Pogue initiated the "Take Back the Beep" campaign to draw attention to the compulsory 15-second voicemail instructions required by American mobile carriers. He contended that these messages were redundant and consumed valuable minutes from users' voice plans, estimating that Verizon’s 87 million subscribers were collectively wasting $750 million each year on this airtime. Pogue shared techniques to skip these instructions and urged consumers to lodge complaints with their service providers. The campaign attracted attention from outlets such as Gizmodo, Engadget, and The Consumerist. Consequently, AT&T reduced its voicemail message length from 12-15 seconds down to eight, although other providers like Verizon Wireless chose not to implement similar changes.

In November 2009, Pogue brought to light a Verizon customer grievance concerning $1.99 fees for unintended data downloads triggered by pressing the up-arrow key on certain Verizon devices, which launched mobile web access and resulted in charges. After Pogue’s report, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) launched an investigation. By October 2010, Verizon consented to refund up to $90 million to 15 million customers who had been incorrectly billed for these data sessions, marking one of the largest refund settlements in the telecommunications industry.

Conflict of interest and other issues

In a 2005 New York Times evaluation of a hard drive recovery service, Pogue mentioned that although the service typically cost between $500 and $2,700, it was provided free of charge for the purpose of his review;[1] however, he did not disclose this during a segment on Morning Edition on National Public Radio. NPR’s Vice President of News later acknowledged that NPR should have either compensated for the service or refrained from broadcasting the review.[2] Eventually, the Times covered the expense.[1]

Pogue’s September 2009 New York Times review of the Snow Leopard Macintosh OS—an operating system for which he also authored a Missing Manual guide—came under scrutiny by The Times Public Editor Clark Hoyt.[3] Hoyt pointed out concerns regarding Pogue's "multiple interests and loyalties" as potential ethical issues. Three ethicists concurred that this situation presented a "clear conflict of interest," placing the newspaper in "challenging ethical territory." In response, Pogue published an ethics disclosure statement on his Times Topics page,[4] and an explicit disclosure was added to his online Snow Leopard review.[3]

In June 2011, Pogue spoke at the Media Relations Summit about how to pitch stories to journalists.[5] Arthur S. Brisbane, reader representative for The New York Times, noted that the publication’s ethics guidelines forbid staff members and freelancers on assignment from offering advice to public relations professionals. Although Pogue was neither on staff nor on assignment at the time, an internal review concluded that his participation in the event was inappropriate.[5] Following this, Pogue stated that his speaking agent would submit any future invitations simultaneously to both himself and his editor.[5]

Awards

In 2004, Pogue earned a Business Emmy as a correspondent for two segments on CBS News Sunday Morning focusing on Google and electronic spam, praised for his ability to simplify intricate technology topics for a general audience.

The Shenandoah Conservatory honored him with an honorary doctorate in music in 2007, acknowledging his artistic efforts that connected classical music with emerging computing technologies.

In 2008, Pogue was awarded the Society of Business Editors and Writers Best in Business Journalism prize for his New York Times video titled The iPhone Challenge: Keep it Quiet.

On May 5, 2009, he received two Webby Awards for his online video series at The New York Times, winning accolades for Best Reality/Variety Host and Technology.

His blog, "Pogue’s Posts," featured in The New York Times, was recognized with the 2010 Gerald Loeb Award for Online Commentary & Blogging.

In 2011, Pogue was presented with the "Golden Mouth Organ" award on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson for his harmonica performance.

By 2013, he had been named an Honorary Fellow of the Society for Technical Communication.

Nonfiction

  • Classical Music for Dummies (first edition 1997; second edition 2015)
  • Crossing Platforms: A Macintosh/Windows Phrasebook (1999)
  • CSS: the Missing Manual
  • David Pogue's Digital Photography: The Missing Manual
  • The Flat-Screen iMac For Dummies
  • GarageBand: the Missing Manual (including GarageBand 2)
  • The Great Macintosh Easter Egg Hunt
  • How to Prepare for Climate Change: A Practical Guide to Surviving the Chaos
  • The iBook For Dummies
  • iLife '04 and '05: The Missing Manual
  • The iMac For Dummies
  • iMovie: The Missing Manual series (various editions)
  • iPhoto: The Missing Manual series (various editions)
  • Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X: The Missing Manual
  • Mac OS X Hints (co-authored with Rob Griffiths)
  • Macs For Dummies
  • Macworld Mac Secrets (six editions, with Joseph Schorr)
  • Magic For Dummies
  • The Microsloth Joke Book: A Satire (editor)
  • More Macs For Dummies
  • Opera For Dummies (with Scott Speck)
  • PalmPilot: The Ultimate Guide
  • Switching to the Mac: The Missing Manual
  • Tales from the Tech Line: Hilarious Strange-But-True Stories from the Computer Industry's Technical-Support Hotlines (editor)
  • The Weird Wide Web (with Erfert Fenton)
  • Multiple editions of Windows Me, Windows Vista, Windows XP Home and Pro Editions, Windows 8.0, 8.1, and Windows 10: The Missing Manual
  • Windows Vista for Starters: The Missing Manual
  • The World According to Twitter
  • Pogue's Basics: Essential Tips and Shortcuts for Simplifying Technology and Life

Fiction

  • Hard Drive: A Novel (1993; reissued in 1995 by Ace; mass market paperback by Diamond Books)
  • Abby Carnelia's One and Only Magical Power, a middle-grade novel (2010)

External links

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named Can You Save a Hard Drive?
  2. ↑ Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named The Cost of a Story: Who Pays?
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named Hoyt
  4. ↑ Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named Disclosure note
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named Brisbane
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