Katie Drummond: ‘Democracy in the US is under threat. And that threat is facilitated by technology and the makers of that technology’

The offices of the Condé Nast publishing group are located in One World Trade Center in New York City, next to the site where the Twin Towers collapsed.

EL PAÍS has a meeting scheduled with Katie Drummond in a room that overlooks Manhattan’s financial district, with the Hudson River in the background. The 39-year-old Canadian – she was born in Kingston, Ontario – began her career as an intern at Wired back in 2008. She has since returned to the leading technology magazine with a bang: since August 2023, she has held the position of global editorial director.

During those 15 years of traveling from one point to another, she worked as an editor at The Verge, Bloomberg, Gizmodo and Medium. She was also vice president of the news team at Vice Media. As soon as she arrived at Wired, this solid track record allowed her to lead a radical and risky change that completely transformed the magazine’s strategy: initiating political coverage. And subscriptions soared, confirming her intuition. During her first 21 months as global editorial director, average daily subscriptions have increased by 51% compared to the previous 21 months. She was a pioneer in understanding what is now obvious: the inseparable connection between technology and power.

Drummond enters the room just five minutes later than the agreed-upon time. She smiles, apologizing for being late due to a prior meeting. It’s impossible to see any of her 13 tattoos; she claims that she dresses very differently than when she worked at Vice Media. She dresses in black from head to toe, like a good New Yorker.

She moved to the city 15 years ago, just after graduating with a degree in Philosophy from Queen’s University, in her hometown of Kingston. She speaks very quickly, clearly, looks you in the eye and leaves no question unanswered. She smiles casually several times throughout the conversation, but doesn’t allow herself even a sip of water until it is completed. This is perhaps a subtle example of the utter focus with which she handles even an interview.

Question. As soon as you joined Wired, you made a strategic shift and began covering politics for the first time. What led you to do this?

Answer. The first thing I did was hire a politics editor and three politics reporters. I built a new team to cover politics for two primary reasons. One was that, looking ahead to 2024, there was a U.S. presidential election that was going to be extremely consequential for the country and the world. [And] there were also an unprecedented number of elections happening around the world.

[All of this was combined] with the fact that politics and technology are now very difficult to pick apart. [They’re] deeply intertwined, with everything from how generative AI influences and impacts voters and their access to information, to hacking and foreign interference in the electoral processes of different countries, to the influence and the pocketbooks of the wealthiest people in Silicon Valley, like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Sam Altman… how they align themselves politically is incredibly important. If Wired is all about covering what’s next – covering the future and being very technologically forward-thinking – we had to start covering politics and taking it very seriously.

Q. Did Anna Wintour – the legendary editor of Vogue and current global content director at Condé Nast – fully support this editorial shift?

A. The company has supported us 110 % in this coverage, from our legal team to our HR department. Everyone is fully behind this work. Wired has done some politics coverage on and off over the years, [but] I think this is the most intensive and focused we’ve been around politics. At a newsroom level, I think it took a little bit of getting used to… [although] I think a lot of those questions and concerns were alleviated when they saw just how intertwined politics and technology were in this election. [Particularly] when they saw Elon Musk jump into the campaign in July of 2024. The entire team is so galvanized by this coverage and so proud of this coverage.

Q. The magazine gained 62,500 new subscribers in the first two weeks of February 2025 alone, proving that this change in strategy was a success.

A. We’ve continued to see significant growth in our subscriber base. [This includes] above-expected audience numbers on our website and a very, very healthy readership.

Q. What’s your biggest goal as editorial director?

A. I want Wired to be the publication of record for this very historic moment that we’re in. Democracy in the United States is under threat. And, more and more, that threat is facilitated by technology and the makers of that technology. As artificial intelligence transforms everything about the way we live and work, I think Wired is uniquely positioned to be the most dominant title in the world. I’m ambitious.

Q. Should we start treating tech billionaires like politicians?

A. I’m very frightened for the health of American democracy. I think what we’re seeing on a daily basis is the rapid erosion of democracy, democratic norms, institutions and best practices in this country. At the end of the day, the individuals facilitating this are [part of] the Trump administration, right? That’s sort of where we need to assign most of the responsibility for what’s happening. But the reality is that you have incredibly wealthy people with incredibly deep pockets who have their own agendas and their own motives. And they’re in the front row of the inauguration. It’s really sort of more like an oligarchy, [with] very wealthy individuals essentially benefiting from an authoritarian government.

Q. How did Wired manage to make news and position itself at the forefront, ahead of media outlets that have been focusing on politics for years?

A. We’re very uniquely positioned. We have an incredible politics editor, Leah Feiger, and this fantastic politics team. And Wired‘s history and background with business and understanding of how Elon Musk operates – [knowing] what it looks like when he goes into a company and what steps he tends to take – makes us able to predict how he might apply that same approach to the federal government. I think the second piece is our approach to journalism. We don’t go through the front door, right? We’re not trying to get into the press briefings. We’re not trying to talk to the White House press secretary on a daily basis. We’re just not beholden to some of the same norms around political reporting as other news organizations.

[Thirdly], I think Wired and our newsroom have a very deep understanding of technology. And so much of what Elon Musk and DOGE were doing inside these agencies came down to systems and data, how data moves across different agencies. I think our ability to understand this and distill it for people gives us a leg up in our coverage.

Q. Now that you’re addressing politics and international issues, why aren’t you covering what’s happening in Gaza? Isn’t it one of the clearest examples of power, technology and vulnerability? Or do you not feel free to talk about certain topics?

A. I think that we feel free to cover everything going on. I think that, given our location, what we’re covering is sort of within the markets that we currently operate in. Our politics coverage [focuses on] Elon Musk’s involvement, [or] the involvement of Silicon Valley elites. We don’t want to be in the business of covering geopolitics.

Q. Millennials continue to make up a large part of your subscriber base. What’s your strategy to engage Gen Z?

A. One of my big priorities coming in – other than launching politics – was really thinking about Wired as a multi-platform destination. It’s not just a print magazine and a website: we also put out journalism via newsletters, TikTok, Instagram, podcasts, YouTube (…) We’re very concertedly trying to reach audiences wherever they are.

Q. How do you manage the differences in local coverage needs between the United States, Europe and Asia? And what are the main technology topics that distinguish these regions?

A. I never want Wired’s coverage globally to feel like Wired in the United States is being imposed on other countries. I think it’s really important that each of those regions and their audiences are doing work and publishing work that’s nuanced and best suited to those parts of the world. At the same time, there are some themes in technology – especially right now – that are just inherently global, right? AI is the most obvious example. In Italy there’s an outsized interest in politics. In Japan there’s a lot of interest in aging and longevity. In Mexico, there’s a lot of interest in environmentalism and climate change and sustainability. So, we certainly see these spikes in audience interest depending on where you are.

Q. How are companies like OpenAI, Meta and Google transforming journalism and media?

A. They’re collectively turning journalism upside down. All kinds of disruptions are happening very quickly. A lot of the changes are having a devastating effect on newsrooms and on people’s ability to access journalism directly from the source, as opposed to [receiving] the AI overviews that Google spits out at you when you search for something.

[That being said], I think there are opportunities to partner with AI companies to figure out revenue-generating ways to provide information from news organizations to audiences. Publishers have spent so many years chasing Facebook traffic, then chasing Google search rankings, always trying to contort their journalism and how they package it, how they sell it… I think we’re in a moment where the ability of those platforms to drive audiences to these publishers has essentially disappeared. And now, publishers need to rely on nothing more than excellent journalists to tell those stories. We’re really seeing it as an opportunity to get back to having a direct relationship with our audience, instead of a relationship mediated by Facebook or Google.

Q. What’s the future of journalism in an era marked by misinformation, algorithms that determine what we read and content generated by artificial intelligence?

A. Generative AI cannot report, write and publish a scoop. Generative AI cannot generate new and newsworthy information in the public interest. I would urge any new journalists [entering] the industry to come in with eyes wide open about what this field looks like, how AI might transform their career and how vitally important it is that they position themselves as human storytellers, who can report and deliver information and storytelling that AI cannot. I genuinely think there will be a premium on this kind of information in the future, because people will want to know that what they’re reading is real and true and was reported by a person.

Q. You’ve openly mentioned that your team uses AI to generate ideas and headlines. Perhaps it improves efficiency and productivity, but what are the long-term negative effects you’re already beginning to notice?

A. AI can be very useful for drudgery or administrative work. But what it’s not is a replacement for human ideas, human reporting, human creativity. And we have very stringent guidelines around how we do and do not use AI, not just at Wired, but at Condé Nast.

Q. Jay Graber at Bluesky, Meredith Whittaker at Signal... there are several women leading important technological platforms. Is this a trend?

A. I think it’s telling that some of the most disruptive things happening in technology right now are being led by women. I think, at the end of the day, women get it done. I think we could stand to see a few more women in charge.

Q. You’ve mentioned several times that you started as an intern because the then-editor of Wired – Noah Shachtman – liked your tattoos. While careers in the U.S. are primarily governed by meritocracy, do you think luck is also necessary?

A. 100%. It’s skill, hard work… and total dumb luck. As dumb as, you know, as coincidentally meeting someone at a bar.

Q. It must have been interesting to return to the Wired newsroom 15 years later as editorial director…

A. People are definitely a lot nicer to me now than they were when I was an intern! It’s interesting, because I was an intern in 2008, when Condé Nast was still so focused on print. Digital was more of an afterthought, and I was working on the digital side. [But] coming back in 2023, so much of the focus was on digital. What stands out to me about this company is that we have infrastructure and we have a runway. One of the most important things for me about Wired is that we have a sustainable business model. We’re able to make enough money so that we can pay our incredibly talented journalists. We can do really ambitious work and we can grow.

Q. What would you say is the biggest challenge you face at Wired?

A. Making sure that the newsroom doesn’t burn out. [And] making sure that people feel like they have what they need in terms of support and resources to do these jobs for the long haul. It’s going to be a marathon. Unfortunately, we’re at the very beginning of what I think will be a long, dramatic, scary and consequential time. And so, my biggest challenge is making sure that my team feels like they can get through that, while doing really high-impact, important work. Work that they know is valued. I want them to be able to feel safe.

Q. Are there any current news stories you think aren’t getting the media attention they deserve?

A. There are plenty. I think that the media has a very bad habit of leaving one story behind as soon as there’s something new to chase, or as soon as the sexiness and excitement of that story fades away. When Elon Musk announced that he was stepping down from DOGE – when he had this big breakup with Donald Trump on social media – everyone covered that. [And now], it feels like news organizations have moved on. But just because Musk isn’t as involved as he previously was doesn’t mean that there’s not still highly consequential stuff happening inside these agencies that Americans and everybody around the world need to know about.

Q. Have you turned down any stories recently due to controversy?

A. Never. If it’s true, we will publish it.

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