As The Wall Street Journal’s premier chronicler of media and tech power dynamics, Hagey dissects boardroom battles and AI ethics with unparalleled depth. Her career spans investigative triumphs from Viacom’s Redstone saga to OpenAI’s leadership crises, earning recognition from the George Polk Awards and Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing.
Keach Hagey’s career began with a baptism by fire at the Queens Chronicle, where she covered a murder within minutes of her first shift. This early exposure to high-stakes reporting forged her ability to distill complex narratives into compelling journalism. Her trajectory accelerated at the Village Voice and CBSNews.com, where she honed her investigative lens on media ecosystems.
At Politico and The National in Abu Dhabi, Hagey expanded her scope to global media politics, laying groundwork for her signature style: marrying corporate intrigue with human drama. Her 2014 move to The Wall Street Journal marked a turning point, positioning her as a leading voice in media-industry upheavals.
This excerpt from Hagey’s The Optimist reconstructs OpenAI’s leadership crisis through unprecedented access to boardroom deliberations. Her forensic timeline of Altman’s temporary ousting reveals how safety concerns clashed with commercial ambitions, featuring verbatim Slack messages and legal document analysis. The piece exemplifies her ability to transform Silicon Valley lore into substantive policy discourse, cited by lawmakers in subsequent AI governance hearings.
In this televised analysis, Hagey decodes Altman’s paradoxical legacy as both AI safety advocate and accelerationist dealmaker. Her commentary traces how OpenAI’s nonprofit structure became incompatible with its ChatGPT-driven valuation surge, blending financial forensics with personality-driven storytelling. The segment influenced how venture capitalists assess governance risks in AI startups.
This podcast deep dive dissects Altman’s "reality distortion field" through psychological profiling and industry impact studies. Hagey maps how his persuasion tactics reshaped Microsoft’s AI strategy and Anthropic’s safety protocols, using comparative analysis with Jobsian leadership models. The episode became required listening in Stanford’s technology ethics curriculum.
Hagey prioritizes stories examining the collision between AI innovation and regulatory frameworks. Her TechCrunch dissection of OpenAI’s governance crisis demonstrates appetite for boardroom-level accountability reporting. Pitch comparative analyses of EU vs. U.S. AI oversight mechanisms, particularly involving former policymakers transitioning to tech roles.
With her Viacom/Redstone chronicles as precedent, Hagey seeks narratives about legacy media’s streaming-era transformations. Successful pitches might explore how traditional publishers are leveraging AI in newsrooms, with emphasis on labor impacts and intellectual property challenges.
The Altman biography underscores Hagey’s focus on founder accountability. Pitch investigative angles on equity structures in "ethical AI" startups or compensation disparities between AI safety researchers and product teams.
Recognizing her contributions to the Facebook Files series, this honor underscores Hagey’s ability to extract systemic insights from corporate secrecy. The jury particularly noted her forensic mapping of algorithm changes to real-world societal impacts.
Her Viacom power struggle coverage beat 300+ entries by demonstrating how boardroom dramas affect creative output and workforce morale. The judges praised her "Shakespearean" narrative framing of Redstone family dynamics.
Awarded for exposing Google’s ad-tech dominance, this cemented Hagey’s reputation as antitrust’s sharpest observer. Her work directly informed congressional inquiries into Big Tech’s market manipulation tactics.
At PressContact, we aim to help you discover the most relevant journalists for your PR efforts. If you're looking to pitch to more journalists who write on Media, here are some other real estate journalist profiles you may find relevant:
