Davey Alba is a technology reporter who reports on

Big Tech Big Tech, also known as the Tech Giants, refers to the most dominant companies in the information technology industry, mostly located in the United States. The term also refers to the four or five largest American tech companies, called the Big ...

for

Bloomberg News Bloomberg News (originally Bloomberg Business News) is an international news agency headquartered in New York City and a division of Bloomberg L.P. Content produced by Bloomberg News is disseminated through Bloomberg Terminals, Bloomberg Televi ...

, after previously reporting online

disinformation Disinformation is false information deliberately spread to deceive people. It is sometimes confused with misinformation, which is false information but is not deliberate. The English word ''disinformation'' comes from the application of the L ...

for ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

''.

Early life and education

Davey Alba was born in

Manila Manila ( , ; fil, Maynila, ), officially the City of Manila ( fil, Lungsod ng Maynila, ), is the capital of the Philippines, and its second-most populous city. It is highly urbanized and, as of 2019, was the world's most densely populate ...

Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...

, and attended De La Salle University, earning a degree in communication arts. Her father is an academic, mother an economic consultant and her sister is VP of a multi-national investment bank. She came to the United States at age 23 in 2011. She studied at Columbia University and received a masters in science journalism.

Career

Alba's first job out of training was at ''

Popular Mechanics ''Popular Mechanics'' (sometimes PM or PopMech) is a magazine of popular science and technology, featuring automotive, home, outdoor, electronics, science, do-it-yourself, and technology topics. Military topics, aviation and transportation o ...

''; she was technology editor and got to test gadgets and phones. She worked as a technology reporter at ''

BuzzFeed News ''BuzzFeed News'' is an American news website published by BuzzFeed. It has published a number of high-profile scoops, including the Steele dossier, for which it was heavily criticized, and the FinCEN Files. Since its establishment in 2011, it ...

'', '' Wired'' and ''

Gizmodo ''Gizmodo'' ( ) is a design, technology, science and science fiction website. It was originally launched as part of the Gawker Media network run by Nick Denton, and runs on the Kinja platform. ''Gizmodo'' also includes the subsite ''io9'', whic ...

'' before joining ''The New York Times'' as a technology reporter in 2019. Her area of coverage was "disinformation and all of its tentacles." In March, 2022, she joined Bloomberg News, covering Google and Big Tech. In 2018, working at BuzzFeed News, she reported how Philippine President

Rodrigo Duterte Rodrigo Roa Duterte (, ; born March 28, 1945), also known as Digong, Rody, and by the initials DU30 and PRRD, is a Filipino lawyer and politician who served as the 16th president of the Philippines from 2016 to 2022. He is the chairperson ...

used Facebook to gain power in the country. For the BuzzFeed News article on Duterte, Alba won two 2019 awards. She was awarded the

Livingston Award The Livingston Awards at the University of Michigan are American journalism awards issued to media professionals under the age of 35 for local, national, and international reporting. They are the largest, all-media, general reporting prizes in Ame ...

for International Reporting, documenting how

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...

ignored fake news, fueled the Filipino drug war, and adversely impacted a vulnerable community by enabling Duterte to manipulate public opinion and win election. After Duterte won, the Facebook machinery of manipulating opinion became a state-sponsored one "to punish oppponents, sometimes with death." She won the

Mirror Award The Mirror Awards are annual journalism awards recognizing the work of writers, reporters, editors and organizations who cover the media industry. The awards were established by the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications in 2006. Awards ...

for Best Story for Journalism in Peril. After reporting on videos supportive of President Trump's recommendation for the use

disinfectant A disinfectant is a chemical substance or compound used to inactivate or destroy microorganisms on inert surfaces. Disinfection does not necessarily kill all microorganisms, especially resistant bacterial spores; it is less effective than st ...

s in the treatment of

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...

, Davey was the target of "

weaponized A weapon, arm or armament is any implement or device that can be used to deter, threaten, inflict physical damage, harm, or kill. Weapons are used to increase the efficacy and efficiency of activities such as hunting, crime, law enforcement, s ...

harassment Harassment covers a wide range of behaviors of offensive nature. It is commonly understood as behavior that demeans, humiliates or embarrasses a person, and it is characteristically identified by its unlikelihood in terms of social and moral ...

." Davey reports that she was targeted as a reporter who is an immigrant, a woman and a

person of color The term "person of color" ( : people of color or persons of color; abbreviated POC) is primarily used to describe any person who is not considered "white". In its current meaning, the term originated in, and is primarily associated with, the U ...

. In September 2021, Alba interviewed incoming

Wikimedia Foundation The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., or Wikimedia for short and abbreviated as WMF, is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization headquartered in San Francisco, California and registered as a charitable foundation under local laws. Best kno ...

chief executive officer A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...

Maryana Iskander Maryana Iskander (; ar, ماريانا إسكندر; born September 1, 1975) is an Egyptian-born American social entrepreneur and lawyer. In 2022, she became the chief executive officer (CEO) of the Wikimedia Foundation, succeeding Katherine Ma ...

. In April 2022, she wrote an article critical of Robert Malone, "who bills himself in public appearances as the inventor of mRNA technology." Malone has been described as spreading misinformation about the disease, claiming that

mRNA In molecular biology, messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) is a single-stranded molecule of RNA that corresponds to the genetic sequence of a gene, and is read by a ribosome in the process of Protein biosynthesis, synthesizing a protein. mRNA is ...

vaccines are not effective.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Alba, Davey People from Manila De La Salle University alumni The New York Times people Victims of cyberbullying Filipino emigrants to the United States Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism alumni BuzzFeed people Wired (magazine) people American reporters and correspondents American magazine editors Technical writers