Sean Mitchell, the publisher of TechDay, emphasises the importance of human-centric journalism in an era increasingly influenced by AI, advocating for a focus on local reporting, scepticism, and high editorial standards. He advises aspiring journalists to remain curious and build trust by asking meaningful questions, while encouraging those pitching stories to prioritise relevance and honesty over generic product announcements. As well as this, Sean discusses TechDay's new website redesign across its global network, providing a cleaner, faster and more modern experience.
You spent your early career working with major technology brands like Apple, IDG, and Renaissance before founding TechDay back in the mid-2000s. Did you always have an inkling that you’d end up on the publishing side of technology?
I do not think I had a grand plan to become a publisher, although my family ran several magazines and my early career was in tech. When I decided to start my business I was drawn to the intersection of technology and media.
Working with major technology brands early on gave me a front-row seat to how quickly the industry moves, but also how much the story around technology matters. The products, platforms and companies are important, but so are the people building them, buying them, questioning them and explaining them.
Publishing became the natural place for that curiosity. It lets you sit close to the industry, but not inside any one company’s agenda. You get to watch the whole market evolve and help readers make sense of it.
TechDay started from that place. We wanted to build a publishing network that could cover technology seriously, locally and consistently, while also being close enough to the market to understand what people were actually dealing with.
What does the average day look like for you as the Publisher of TechDay?
There probably is no truly average day, which is one of the things I enjoy about TechDay.
A lot of my time is split between editorial direction, commercial strategy, product, people and operations. One moment might be about where we need more local editorial presence, the next might be about how readers are finding our stories through search, social, newsletters or AI-driven discovery.
Recently, a big focus has been on lifting the quality of the reader experience across TechDay. We have refreshed our sites, improved navigation, strengthened regional story presentation and invested much more heavily in visuals. Technology stories can be complex, and strong visuals help readers understand them faster and remember them longer.
I also spend a lot of time thinking about the team. We now have the biggest editorial team we have ever had, with more people focused on interviews, events and local coverage. That human presence is becoming more important, not less.
What do you see for the future of tech journalism? What are your thoughts on using AI in the journalism space?
Tech journalism is entering a very strange but exciting period.
On one hand, AI and search are changing how people discover information. Readers may not always land on a homepage or even a story page first. Increasingly, journalism is being surfaced, summarised, indexed or interpreted by machines before it reaches a human.
On the other hand, that makes trusted human journalism more valuable. Local presence, scepticism, context, interviews, event coverage and original reporting matter more when the internet is full of generic content.
I think AI can be useful in journalism, but it should not replace journalism. It can help with workflow, research assistance, transcription, translation, formatting, discovery and analysis. But the judgement still needs to come from people.
The danger is when AI is used to flood the market with average, derivative or unverified content. That is not journalism.
At TechDay, we are very interested in how AI changes discovery and distribution, but we are also investing in the opposite direction: more local editors, more in-person interviews, better visual storytelling and higher editorial standards.
The future of tech journalism belongs to publishers that can be useful to both humans and machines, while still being unmistakably human in how they report, question and explain.
Do you have any advice for someone wanting to start out in the industry?
Be curious, reliable and specific.
The best journalists I have worked with are not necessarily the ones who know the most on day one. They are the ones who ask better questions, follow through, read widely and learn quickly.
In technology journalism, it is easy to get distracted by hype. There is always a new platform, a new funding round, a new AI tool, a new cybersecurity incident or a new vendor claim. The job is to slow that down and ask: What does this actually mean? Who does it affect? Why now? What is missing from the story?
I would also encourage people starting out to get close to the real world. Go to events. Talk to founders, engineers, channel partners, CIOs, security leaders and customers. The best stories often come from conversations, not inboxes.
And finally, build trust. It takes a long time to earn and can disappear very quickly.
Finally, what makes a good pitch? Is there anything you want to see more or less of?
A good pitch is clear, relevant and honest.
Tell us what the story is, why it matters now, who is available to speak, and what makes it different from every other pitch in the inbox. If there is a strong local angle, say that early. If there is a customer, data point, interview opportunity or event connection, include it.
The best pitches understand our audience. TechDay covers technology through a business, channel, enterprise, cybersecurity and regional lens. A generic global announcement is much less useful than a story that explains why it matters to Australians.
Unfortunately, 90% of interview pitches we receive these days are just follow-ups to a press release, with a narrowly focused product spokesperson.
A good pitch makes the journalist’s job easier without trying to do the journalist’s job for them.
About the Author
Calen Matthys
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