Sometime in late February 2006, my phone rang; it was my boss, Steve Saunders. A serial entrepreneur, Saunders had birthed the telecoms website Light Reading in 2000.
“I bought the URL darkreading.com and am thinking about starting a security site,” he said. “Interested?” Indeed, I was. I asked Saunders about the projected launch date. “Early May,” he said.
I was silent but knew he could hear my eye roll.
By way of background, tech media looked very different 20 years ago. Most print publications had websites where they mostly recycled their print content and could run stories in their full, uncut length. In 2006, there still weren’t that many sites being launched without a print analog counterpart. Saunders was known for putting the cart before the horse that way, trusting that great content would attract a very specific audience — and advertisers.
It’s also fair to say that, in that era, the majority of news websites were pretty basic. Most of them had Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds and message boards for stories (no moderators — too expensive). If they were fancy and had budget, B2B news sites sported a search bar. Columns and opinion pieces got repurposed under the clunky heading “blogs,” which in 2006 sounded more like an upper GI event than anything you’d want to read.
But back to getting a new security site off the ground: May was two months away and felt like tomorrow. Who exactly was going to crank out content for this Dark Reading? I took a mental inventory of the writers and editors I knew who could maintain the story-a-day pace. As luck would have it, Tim Wilson had just been laid off from Internet Week. Lots has been written about Tim, who passed away in 2021; he was the total package of writer, editor, and manager. And friend. I wasn’t 30 seconds into my pitch when he asked, “When can I start?”
Our conversation quickly turned to who else we wanted to hire. Tim and I both had a long, admiration-filled history with Kelly Jackson Higgins (Tim, starting at their college newspaper at William & Mary; me, from across the hall in the Washington, DC, bureau of CMP — now Informa). Kelly had abandoned us 15-plus years previously for what become a wildly successful freelance business. I was dubious we could lure her back, but Tim was unfazed: “I don’t care. I’m calling her.” Several minutes later, he IM’d me that we had Dark Reading’s first managing editor. I may have raised both fists in the air and yelled, “F%#! yeah!”
It didn’t take long to find our momentum. Story coverage ranged from spam-based malware (some things never change) to denial-of-service (DoS) attacks (distributed DoS, or DDoS, would soon follow), and, of course, the TJX data breach that exposed 46 million customer records. The industry was wrestling over what would replace or complement the firewall, not to mention how to manage all those freaking alerts. SOCs were growing almost as fast as threat varieties and types of attackers.
We, as writers and reporters, quickly found out how hard it was to get customers to talk about their security pain points. We tired of PR emails with “Post-its On Passwords?” subject lines. We reveled when this first-person account clocked more than 300,000 page views, announcing Dark Reading’s arrival with the fanfare of a marching band.
Cybersecurity Journalism Talent
There have been plenty of talented reporters and editors at Dark Reading since then, including Sara Peters, former features editor; Kelly Sheridan, former senior editor and reporter; and Jim Donahue, former managing editor for content operations. Today’s team encompasses a new generation of top cybersecurity media talent: Fahmida Rashid, managing editor for technology and features; Tara Seals, managing editor for news; Becky Bracken, senior editor; Rob Wright, news director; reporters Alex Culafi and Arielle Waldman; and associate editor Kristina Beek.
But a publication doesn’t last 20 years without smart leadership — people with brains and maturity. Journalists at that level need three essential skills: bang-up writing, sharp editing, and the ability to manage people — up and down the company hierarchy. Tim and Kelly were the rare birds who mastered that trio, even adding a fourth skill: Being really great to work for. Credit for Dark Reading’s success belongs to them for all the heavy lifting they did with grace and stamina.
It’s been a thrill to watch the site find its footing and go on to become the dominant publication for cybersecurity professionals and executives. Congratulations to Dark Reading, Kelly and her team, and all the people inside and outside Informa and Informa TechTarget who’ve contributed to Dark Reading’s success. Here’s to another 20 years of top-notch cybersecurity coverage!
