David Pogue

David Pogue
Pogue in October 2010
Born	David Welch Pogue March 9, 1963 (1963-03-09) (age 48) Shaker Heights, Ohio, U.S.A.
Alma mater	Yale University
Spouse	Jennifer Pogue, MD
Children	son Kelly, daughter Tia, and son Jeffrey
Website
http://www.davidpogue.com/

David Welch Pogue^[1] (born March 9, 1963) is an American technology writer, technology columnist and commentator. He is a personal technology columnist for the New York Times, an Emmy-winning tech correspondent for CBS News Sunday Morning, and weekly tech correspondent for CNBC. He has written or co-written seven books in the For Dummies series (including Macintosh computers, magic, opera, and classical music); in 1999, he launched his own series of computer how-to books, called the Missing Manual series, which now includes over 100 titles covering a variety of personal computer operating systems and applications. In 2009, David wrote with collaboration from around 500,000 Twitter followers, "The World According to Twitter"; a book in which he publishes daily questions 'tweeted', and includes the best responses from a selection of his followers.

Early life

Pogue was born in Shaker Heights, Ohio, the son of Richard Welch Pogue, an attorney and former Managing Partner at Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue, and Patricia Ruth (née Raney).^[2] He is a grandson of aviation attorney L.Welch Pogue and Mary Ellen Edgerton. He is also a great nephew of Harold Eugene "Doc" Edgerton, a professor of electrical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and credited with transforming the stroboscope from an obscure laboratory instrument into a common device. ^[3]

He graduated from Yale University in 1985, summa cum laude with Distinction in Music.^[4] He spent ten years working in New York, for a time in the office of Music Theatre International and also intermittently as a Broadway musical conductor. On August 29, 2007 he received an Honorary Degree (Doctor of Music) from Shenandoah Conservatory of Shenandoah University in Winchester, Virginia.

On May 16, 2011, Pogue and his estranged wife were charged with disorderly conduct after a domestic dispute turned physical. According to police, Mrs. Pogue entered his house and, while trying to record an argument, bit him on the forearm; she says that Pogue grabbed her phone and struck her with it ^[5]. Mrs. Pogue's lawyer reported that "no one was injured." ^[6] These charges were later dismissed.^[7]

Career

Pogue wrote for Macworld Magazine from 1988-2000. His back-page column was called The Desktop Critic. Pogue got his start writing books when Macworld-owner IDG asked him to write Macs for Dummies to follow on the success of the first ...for Dummies book, DOS for Dummies, written by Dan Gookin.^[4]

Since November 2000, Pogue has served as the The New York Times personal-tech columnist; his column, "State of the Art," appears each Thursday on the front page of the Business section. He also writes "From the Desk of David Pogue," a tech-related opinion column that is sent to readers by e-mail. He also maintains a blog at nytimes.com called Pogue's Posts.

Each Thursday, he appears on CNBC's "Power Lunch" in a taped, three-minute comic tech review, which then appears on the New York Times website, nytimes.com, as well as iTunes, YouTube, TiVo, and JetBlue.

In 2007, the HD Theater and Science channels aired his six-episode series, It's All Geek to Me, a how-to show about consumer technology.

He is the host of a new four-part PBS NOVA miniseries about materials science, called "Making Stuff," that aired on 4 consecutive Wednesdays starting January 19th, 2011 on PBS.

He also writes and hosts several segments each year for CBS News Sunday Morning.

Pogue is a frequent speaker at educational, government, and corporate conferences. In 2009 he was the keynote speaker at the international Summit Conference of the Society for Technical Communication, the largest professional organization of technical writers and editors. Pogue also headlined the annual EduComm Conference, a nationwide gathering of higher education leaders pursuing breakthrough technologies with the potential to transform the college experience. He has performed three times at TED, a conference in Monterey, CA: in 2006, a 20-minute talk about simplicity; in 2007, a medley of high-tech song parodies at the piano (or, as Pogue joked, "a tedley,") and most recently in December 2008, talking about cellphones, the cool tricks they can be made to do, and how the phones are often so much better than the companies that market them.^[8] In 2008, he performed at the EG conference, also in Monterey. He has also spoken at the 2008 and 2009 ASTD TechKnowldge Conference and expo as a keynote speaker. On March 16, 2009, he was the keynote speaker for the ASSET conference in Huntington, New York. Also on 2009, he gave a conference about Web 2.0 at Tecnologico de Monterrey in Monterrey, Mexico. He discussed three trends in technology and also played his entertaining technology songs.

Controversy

In 2005, Pogue was the subject of a conflict-of-interest controversy. In a New York Times review of a hard drive recovery service, Pogue noted that the service, which can cost from $500 to $2,700, was provided at no charge for the purposes of the review;^[9] but when describing the service for National Public Radio's Morning Edition program on September 12, 2005,^[10] he failed to mention this. NPR's Vice President of News Bill Marimow later stated that NPR should have either not aired the review or paid for the services itself.^[10] Ultimately, the Times paid for the service.^[9]

Also called into question was Pogue's impartiality on reviews of products for which he had authored a Missing Manual book. This controversy necessitated a response from Clark Hoyt, the Times' Public Editor on Pogue's role as a freelance journalist with external obligations.^[11] In an op-ed piece, Hoyt wrote "His multiple interests and loyalties raise interesting ethical issues in this new age when individual journalists can become brands of their own, stars who seem to transcend the old rules that sharply limited outside activity and demanded an overriding obligation to The Times and its readers."^[11] Of three ethicists consulted, each agreed Pogue's position created a "clear conflict of interest" and placed the paper on "tricky ethical terrain." In response, Pogue pledged to be more open with his conflicts of interest, and while he initially claimed that because he is not a journalist he is not bound by journalistic ethics,^[12] he soon recanted and agreed to offer a full "fanboy disclosure" on his website.

In June 2011 Pogue gave a presentation at the Media Relations Summit^[13] in which he credits P.R. personnel (of companies whose product he is reviewing) of providing most of his material for columns. The Times' reader representative started an inquiry, which led to Pogue being banned from any such appearances in the future.^[14]

Personal life

Pogue married on September 16, 1995, at Woods Hole, Massachusetts, Jennifer Letitia O'Sullivan, the daughter of Dr. Renee Bennett O'Sullivan of Wellesley, Massachusetts, a plastic and reconstructive surgeon. She graduated from Brown University and received her medical degree from the Medical College of Pennsylvania and was a hand and plastic surgeon for four years in Stamford, Connecticut.^[15]

Bibliography

Non-fiction

• Classical Music for Dummies (ISBN 978-0764550096)
• Crossing Platforms: A Macintosh/Windows Phrasebook (with Adam C. Engst) (ISBN 978-1565925397)
• CSS: the Missing Manual (ISBN 978-0596802448)
• David Pogue's Digital Photography: The Missing Manual (ISBN 978-0596154035)
• The Flat-Screen iMac for Dummies (ISBN 978-0764516634)
• GarageBand: the Missing Manual (ISBN 978-0596006952)
• GarageBand 2: the Missing Manual (ISBN 978-0596100353)
• The Great Macintosh Easter Egg Hunt (ISBN 978-0425160060)
• The iBook for Dummies (ISBN 978-0764506475)
• iLife '04: The Missing Manual (ISBN 978-0596006945)
• iLife '05: The Missing Manual (ISBN 978-0596100360)
• The iMac for Dummies (ISBN 0764504959)
• iMovie: The Missing Manual (ISBN 1565928598)
• iMovie 2: The Missing Manual (ISBN 978-0596001049)
• iMovie 3 & iDVD: The Missing Manual (ISBN 978-0596005078)
• iMovie 4 & iDVD: The Missing Manual (ISBN 978-0596006938)
• iMovie HD & iDVD 5: The Missing Manual (ISBN 978-0596100339)
• iMovie 6 & iDVD: The Missing Manual (ISBN 978-0596527266)
• iMovie '08 & iDVD: The Missing Manual (ISBN 978-0596516192)
• iMovie '09 & iDVD: The Missing Manual (ISBN 978-0596801410)
• iMovie '11 & iDVD: The Missing Manual (ISBN 978-1449393274)
• iPhoto: The Missing Manual (ISBN 978-0596003654)
• iPhoto 2: The Missing Manual (ISBN 978-0596005061)
• iPhoto 4: The Missing Manual (ISBN 978-0596006921)
• iPhoto 5: The Missing Manual (ISBN 978-0596100346)
• iPhoto 6: The Missing Manual (ISBN 978-0596527259)
• iPhoto '08: The Missing Manual (ISBN 978-0596516185)
• iPhoto '09: The Missing Manual (ISBN 978-0596801441)
• iPhoto '11: The Missing Manual (ISBN 978-1449393236)
• Mac OS 9: The Missing Manual (ISBN 978-1565928572)
• Mac OS X: The Missing Manual (ISBN 0596000820)
• Mac OS X Hints (with Rob Griffiths) (ISBN 978-0596004514)
• Macs for Dummies (ISBN 978-0764503986)
• Macworld Mac Secrets (with Joseph Schorr) (ISBN 978-0764534157)
• Magic for Dummies (ISBN 978-0764551017)
• The Microsloth Joke Book: A Satire (editor) (ISBN 978-0425160541)
• More Macs for Dummies (ISBN 978-0764502675)
• Opera for Dummies (with Scott Speck) (ISBN 978-0764550102)
• PalmPilot: The Ultimate Guide (ISBN 1565926005)
• Switching to the Mac: The Missing Manual (ISBN 978-0596004521)
• Tales from the Tech Line: Hilarious Strange-But-True Stories from the Computer Industry's Technical-Support Hotlines (editor) (ISBN 978-0425163634)
• The Weird Wide Web (with Erfert Fenton) (ISBN 978-0614262995)
• Windows Me: The Missing Manual (ISBN 978-0596000097)
• Windows Vista: The Missing Manual (ISBN 978-0596528270)
• Windows Vista for Starters: The Missing Manual (ISBN 978-0596528263)
• Windows XP Home Edition: The Missing Manual (ISBN 978-0596008970)
• Windows XP Pro: The Missing Manual (ISBN 978-0596008987)
• The World According to Twitter (ISBN 978-1579128272)

Fiction

• Hard Drive (1993), a techno-thriller (ISBN 978-0441002559)
• "Abby Carnelia's One and Only Magical Power" (2010, novel for middle-schoolers) (ISBN 978-1596433847)

References

1. ^ "Jennifer O'Sullivan, David W. Pogue - New York Times". The New York Times. September 17, 1995. http://www.nytimes.com/1995/09/17/style/jennifer-o-sullivan-david-w-pogue.html. 
2. ^ The Bradford Family Compact bulletin - Google Books
3. ^ http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/tech/making-stuff-stronger.html 16 minutes into program discusses Edgerton
4. ^ ^{a b} David Pogue. "David Pogue's Bio". http://www.davidpogue.com/bio_photos/index.html. Retrieved 2007-06-28. 
5. ^ New York Times Columnist, Wife, Charged In Domestic Argument - Courant.com
6. ^ New York Times Tech Columnist David Pogue, Estranged Wife Jennifer Charged With Disorderly Conduct In Westport After Fight In Their Home « CBS New York
7. ^ "Charges dismissed against NY Times tech writer David Pogue and wife". Westport News. http://www.westport-news.com/news/article/Times-tech-writer-David-Pogue-in-domestic-1434983.php. Retrieved 23 June 2011. 
8. ^ TED. "David Pogue on the music wars". http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/196. 
9. ^ ^{a b} David Pogue (September 1, 2005). "Can You Save a Hard Drive?". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/01/technology/circuits/01POGUE-EMAIL.html. Retrieved May 1, 2010. 
10. ^ ^{a b} Jeffrey A. Dvorkin. "The Cost of a Story: Who Pays?". http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5281529. Retrieved 2007-07-05. 
11. ^ ^{a b} Clark Hoyt (September 6, 2009). "He Works for The Times, Too". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/06/opinion/06pubed.html. Retrieved 2011-01-17. 
12. ^ Ryan Tate. "David Pogue: 'I Am Not a Reporter, I Have Never Been To Journalism School'". http://gawker.com/5365105/david-pogue-i-am-not-a-reporter-i-have-never-been-to-journalism-school. Retrieved 2011-01-17. 
13. ^ https://store.prdaily.com/ProductDetails.asp?product=Y1WC05&listshow=Webcasts&catid=B45B3668C98444A1B6A15E0693487FDB
14. ^ Brisbane, Arthur S. (July 6, 2011). "Times curbs Pogue's P.R. appearances". The New York Times. http://publiceditor.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/06/times-curbs-pogues-pr-appearances/. 
15. ^ Jennifer O'Sullivan, David W. Pogue

External links

• Official website
• David Pogue on Twitter
• Making Stuff, 2011 Nova science series on PBS
• David Pogue at O'Reilly Media
• David Pogue collected news and commentary at The New York Times
  • Pogue's Posts blog
• David Pogue at TED Conferences
• Works by or about David Pogue in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• David Pogue at the Internet Movie Database
• David Pogue at the Internet Broadway Database

Persondata
Name	Pogue, David
Alternative names
Short description	Technology writer, journalist and commentator
Date of birth	March 9, 1963 (1963-03-09) (age 48)
Place of birth	Shaker Heights, Ohio, U.S.A.
Date of death
Place of death