Josh Quittner (born February 12, 1957) is an American journalist. Quittner is CEO of Decrypt Media, a leading independent publication covering the world of Web 3.0, cryptocurrency, NFTs and more. Born in

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

, Quittner grew up in

Reading, Pennsylvania Reading ( ; Pennsylvania Dutch: ''Reddin'') is a city in and the county seat of Berks County, Pennsylvania, United States. The city had a population of 95,112 as of the 2020 census and is the fourth-largest city in Pennsylvania after Philade ...

. He is a graduate of

Grinnell College Grinnell College is a private liberal arts college in Grinnell, Iowa, United States. It was founded in 1846 when a group of New England Congregationalists established the Trustees of Iowa College. Grinnell has the fifth highest endowment-to-stu ...

and the

Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism The Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism is located in Pulitzer Hall on the university's Morningside Heights campus in New York City. Founded in 1912 by Joseph Pulitzer, Columbia Journalism School is one of the oldest journalism ...

. He is married to

Michelle Slatalla Michelle Slatalla is an American journalist and humorist. Currently, she writes a monthly column for the '' Wall Street Journal'' about interior design. Previously, she was a columnist for '' The New York Times'', '' TIME'' magazine, '' Real Si ...

and has three daughters, including Ella Quittner, who is also a journalist and screenwriter. He has co-authored five books with his wife, including ''Masters of Deception: The Gang That Ruled Cyberspace'' (Harper-Collins, 1995) about the New York-based hacker group

Masters of Deception Masters of Deception (MOD) was a New York–based group of hackers, most widely known in media for their exploits of telephone company infrastructure and later prosecution. Origin of Masters of Deception MOD's initial membership grew from m ...

, ''Speeding the Net: The Inside Story of Netscape and How it Challenged Microsoft'' (1998), ''Mother's Day'' (1993), ''Flame War: A Cyberthriller'' (1998), and ''Shoofly Pie to Die'' (1992). Quittner spent the first twelve years of his career as a newspaper reporter. He was a crime reporter and a general assignment writer before he started to write about technology from the consumer side at ''

Newsday ''Newsday'' is an American daily newspaper that primarily serves Nassau and Suffolk counties on Long Island, although it is also sold throughout the New York metropolitan area. The slogan of the newspaper is "Newsday, Your Eye on LI", and fo ...

'' in 1992. Quittner then freelanced for ''

Wired Magazine ''Wired'' (stylized as ''WIRED'') is a monthly American magazine, published in print and online editions, that focuses on how emerging technologies affect culture, the economy, and politics. Owned by Condé Nast, it is headquartered in San Fr ...

'' and was the original domain-name holder of mcdonalds.com, which he registered for an early ''Wired'' piece on domain-name squatting. Quittner also freelanced for the webzine

HotWired ''Hotwired'' (1994–1999) was the first commercial online magazine, launched on October 27, 1994. Although it was part of the print magazine ''Wired'', ''Hotwired'' carried original content. History Andrew Anker, Wired's then Vice Presid ...

, which ran his manifesto of the "Info Revolution" titled "The Birth of Way New Journalism," a riff on

New Journalism New Journalism is a style of news writing and journalism, developed in the 1960s and 1970s, that uses literary techniques unconventional at the time. It is characterized by a subjective perspective, a literary style reminiscent of long-form non- ...

that "became an instant cliché." He joined Time Inc. as a staff writer in 1995. During his initial seven years at ''

Time Magazine ''Time'' (stylized in all caps) is an American news magazine based in New York City. For nearly a century, it was published weekly, but starting in March 2020 it transitioned to every other week. It was first published in New York City on Ma ...

'' he worked for Pathfinder, Time Inc.'s first independent online presence, where he launched the ''Netly News'', one of the web's first daily news publications. He then became the editor of ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and event (philosophy), events that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various me ...

s spinoff technology supplement ''Time Digital'', later called ''ON Magazine''. From April 2002 until September 2007 Quittner was the editor of ''

Business 2.0 ''Business 2.0'' was a monthly magazine publication founded by magazine entrepreneur Chris Anderson, Mark Gross, and journalist James Daly in order to chronicle the rise of the "New Economy". First published in July 1998, the magazine was sold ...

''. Quittner briefly revived "Netly News" as the name of a Business 2.0 blog. He also owns the domain name roofmagazine.com, which currently Roof, a sporadically updated real-estate blog. After Business 2.0, he served briefly as an executive editor at

Fortune Magazine ''Fortune'' is an American multinational business magazine headquartered in New York City. It is published by Fortune Media Group Holdings, owned by Thai businessman Chatchaval Jiaravanon. The publication was founded by Henry Luce in 1929. The ...

, working at its San Francisco bureau, before rejoining Time in April 2008 as an editor-at-large. From 2011-2018, he was the editorial director at Flipboard.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Quittner, Josh Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism alumni American technology writers Grinnell College alumni Living people 1957 births Taft School alumni