Laura Sydell
Laura Sydell fell in love with the intimate storytelling qualities of radio, which combined her passion for theatre and writing with her addiction to news. Over her career she has covered politics, arts, media, religion, and entrepreneurship. Currently Sydell is the Digital Culture Correspondent for NPR's All Things Considered, Morning Edition, Weekend Edition, and NPR.org.
Sydell's work focuses on the ways in which technology is transforming our culture and how we live. For example, she reported on robotic orchestras and independent musicians who find the Internet is a better friend than a record label as well as ways technology is changing human relationships.
Sydell has traveled through India and China to look at the impact of technology on developing nations. In China, she reported how American television programs like Lost broke past China's censors and found a devoted following among the emerging Chinese middle class. She found in India that cell phones are the computer of the masses.
Sydell teamed up with Alex Bloomberg of NPR's Planet Money team and reported on the impact of patent trolls on business and innovations particular to the tech world. The results were a series of pieces that appeared on This American Life and All Things Considered. The hour long program on This American Life "When Patents Attack! - Part 1," was honored with a Gerald Loeb Award and accolades from Investigative Reporters and Editors. A transcript of the entire show was included in The Best Business Writing of 2011 published by Columbia University Press.
Before joining NPR in 2003, Sydell served as a senior technology reporter for American Public Media's Marketplace, where her reporting focused on the human impact of new technologies and the personalities behind the Silicon Valley boom and bust.
Sydell is a proud native of New Jersey and prior to making a pilgrimage to California and taking up yoga she worked as a reporter for NPR Member Station WNYC in New York. Her reporting on race relations, city politics, and arts was honored with numerous awards from organizations such as The Newswomen's Club of New York, The New York Press Club, and The Society of Professional Journalists.
American Women in Radio and Television, The National Federation of Community Broadcasters, and Women in Communications have all honored Sydell for her long-form radio documentary work focused on individuals whose life experiences turned them into activists.
After finishing a one-year fellowship with the National Arts Journalism Program at Columbia University, Sydell came to San Francisco as a teaching fellow at the Graduate School of Journalism at University of California, Berkeley.
Sydell graduated Magna Cum Laude with a bachelor's degree from William Smith College in Geneva, New York, and earned a J.D. from Yeshiva University's Cardozo School of Law.
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Uber says it is cooperating with an investigation into a fatal accident involving one of its self-driving vehicles over the weekend. A woman in Tempe, Arizona, was struck and killed as she was crossing a street outside of a crosswalk, according to police.
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An MIT study tracked 126,000 stories and found that false ones were 70 percent more likely to be retweeted than ones that were true. Twitter is asking outside experts to help it deal with the problem. -
Technology is making many jobs obsolete. But even acting? The technology in the Academy Award-winning Blade Runner 2049 gives a glimpse of a future where digital actors will compete against live ones. -
Artist Alexander Reben wants to know whether a robot could fulfill our deep need for companionship. He created a robot named BlabDroid that asks people to share their raw emotions and deep secrets. -
Everything from cars to thermostats is being connected to the Internet, raising security concerns. Samy Kamkar, who once hacked MySpace, hopes exposing vulnerabilities will make these things safer. -
The titans of Silicon Valley have a grand vision of the future. But they have a tendency to miss the downside of their inventions — think cybercrime and online harassment. -
Major security vulnerabilities exist in the chips of most of the world's computers. The flaws were recently discovered and could make data in servers and individual devices vulnerable to hackers.
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In Silicon Valley, it's difficult for women to come forward if they want to join the ranks of its richest. Some think the best way to fight harassment is to tread carefully and get to the top. -
Some First Amendment advocates joined a suit against the president for blocking people from his Twitter account — and they are making a novel argument about the right to communicate in a digital age. -
Experts say such propaganda sows divisions within society by confirming beliefs. Facebook, Google and Twitter officials are testifying this week about Russian influence on the 2016 election.
