If you've ever read a tech column and thought "okay but what does this actually feel like to live with" - congratulations, you and Joanna Stern are basically the same person. The longtime Wall Street Journal senior personal technology columnist has packed up her prestigious perch and gone fully independent, launching her own media company called New Things.
And she's not easing into it gently. Her opening move is a book about AI called I Am Not a Robot, which dropped this week. Bold title. Very necessary disclaimer in 2025.
From the WSJ to doing things her way
Stern is no stranger to the tech media world. She's one of the co-founders of The Verge, a former guest host on the Decoder podcast, and by all accounts a person who has spent a genuinely alarming amount of time thinking about how technology fits into everyday human life. The kind of person you want writing about AI, basically.
The jump from a major legacy publication to an independent media venture is a big one - and it's a move that more and more journalists are making as the media landscape keeps doing its chaotic little thing. But Stern isn't going indie to escape tech; she's going indie to go deeper into it.
So, what's the book actually about?
The title I Am Not a Robot is doing a lot of work there, and honestly, good. The book comes out of Stern's experience living alongside AI tools - not just testing them in a lab setting, but actually letting them into her life and seeing what happens. That's the Joanna Stern signature move: make the abstract tangible, make the technical human, make the reader feel like they're right there with you.
In a media moment where AI discourse tends to swing between "it will save us all" and "we are doomed," a grounded, first-person account of what it's actually like to coexist with these tools sounds genuinely refreshing. Or at least, more useful than another think piece about the singularity.
Why this matters
Stern's move is part of a bigger shift - experienced, trusted voices leaving big institutions to build something on their own terms. New Things is a media company, not just a newsletter or a YouTube channel, which suggests she's thinking bigger than a solo content grind.
And starting with a book about AI - right now, when everyone is either terrified of it or insufferably excited about it - is either perfectly timed or a little chaotic. Probably both. Which, if you know Joanna Stern's work, tracks perfectly.
I Am Not a Robot is out now. The Decoder podcast episode with Stern diving into all of this is available via The Verge.
