A conversation with David Pescovitz, BoingBoing.net, and Neil Chase, Federated Media Publishing.

Neil Chase heads the team responsible for recruiting and working with Federated Media’s authors. He joined FM in Spring 2007 after serving as the editor of continuous news at the New York Times and, before that, managing editor at CBS MarketWatch. Chase spent five years as a professor at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, where he launched the new-media journalism program and was the school’s director of technology. Before joining the Northwestern faculty, he worked as an editor at the San Francisco Examiner and the Arizona Republic, and consulted for a number of publications and companies.

David Pescovitz, MJ ’95, is the co-editor of the popular weblog BoingBoing.net and a research affiliate with the Institute for the Future. He is also editor-at-large for MAKE: Magazine and writer-in-residence for UC Berkeley’s College of Engineering and the Berkeley Sciences. Pescovitz co-wrote the book Reality Check, based on his long-running futurist column in Wired magazine where he is still a contributing writer. He has also written for Scientific American, Popular Science, Business 2.0, the New York Times, the Washington Post, Salon, and New Scientist, among many other publications. In 2002, he won the Foresight Prize in Communication, recognizing excellence in educating the public and research community about nanotechnology and other emerging technologies.

Pescovitz’s writing also has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, IEEE Spectrum, Industry Standard, Salon, Spin, MTV Online, Interior Design, Discovery Channel Online, FlashArt, Small Times, and Encyclopaedia Britannica Online. His explorations of fringe culture are featured in the Happy Mutant Handbook (Riverhead, 1996) and The ‘Zine Reader (Holt, 1997). In 1996, Pescovitz created Nrrrd, a critically acclaimed technology and youth culture Web site for Turner Entertainment. Pescovitz is a member of the International Academy of Digital Arts & Science and has appeared on numerous television and radio programs and networks including CNN’s Sonya Live, NPR, Fox News, ZDTV, and CNET.

Pescovitz holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Electronic Media from the University of Cincinnati and a Master’s in Journalism from UC Berkeley.