What’s on your desk?

Stevie Bonifield is a news writer here at The Verge and, they say, “I cover a little bit of just about everything, from the FCC to AI shopping tools to Linux.” Before joining our news team, they wrote weekend news for PC Gamer and did reviews, news, features, and guides for Laptop Mag, along with some stories for Tom’s Guide, IGN, TechRadar, and XDA. “I’ve been reading (and watching) The Verge since I was in high school,“ they add, ”so it’s pretty exciting to be part of the team now.“

Outside of writing, Stevie says “I also love gaming, reading, and TTRPGs (tabletop roleplaying games). As you’ll probably be able to tell from my workspace, I’m kind of a total nerd.”

Not all of The Verge’s staff live in the US. For example, news editor Dominic Preston is based in London and is, as he says, “responsible for keeping our news coverage ticking over in UK mornings before the US team comes online.” He also curates our new Verge Daily newsletter and covers Android phones, especially all the models that don’t launch in the US.

And outside of work? “I’m a bit of a food obsessive,” he says, “and run a newsletter called Braise where I review London restaurants and cookbooks, and occasionally try my own hand at recipe writing. That means I spend most of my free time cooking, eating, or thinking about food, and so also a decent amount of time in the gym trying to make up for that.”

Cameron Faulkner describes himself as “a New York City transplant who’s lived in Brooklyn since 2012.” He continues, “When I’m not at work, I try to get as far away from my computer as I can (I don’t always succeed), spending time with my wife, 15-month-old son, and two cats. I enjoy walking around, playing video games, drinking coffee, and keeping myself busy with a never-ending list of tasks.”

He is currently commerce editor at The Verge, where he helps other commerce writers find good deals, edits their work, and writes about gaming accessories, monitors, and other fun gadgets worth knowing about. He is also the first Verge staffer to be featured twice on What’s on Your Desk — and here’s why.

Kallie Plagge, The Verge’s senior copy editor, has been working in the media for over 10 years now, mainly at gaming websites. She was primarily a video game critic for a lot of that time and was the reviews editor at GameSpot for about three years, before eventually becoming the senior copy editor at Polygon. “I was there for three years before Vox Media sold the brand, and I was fortunate enough to be offered the same role at The Verge,” she explains.

We asked Kallie to tell us about her home office setup.

Allison Johnson is the smartphone reviewer for The Verge, along with, as she says, “a bit of telecom on the side, which means I am a professional phone user.” She came to The Verge from DPReview, where she covered digital cameras and smartphone cameras.

That looks like a cozy space. Where in your home is it?

Jennifer Pattison Tuohy is The Verge’s smart home reviewer, and she’s mind-bogglingly impressive in the number of devices she covers. As she says, “On any given day, I can be evaluating anything from robot vacuums, smart locks, and lights, to smart chicken coops, smart ovens, and connected coffee makers.”

Jennifer has been a journalist for her entire career, “starting at The Daily Telegraph in London, England, right out of university.” She’s been at The Verge since 2021; before that, she was a freelance journalist for publications including Dwell, Wirecutter, Wired, and US News.

What exactly is a producer? Well, according to Nick Statt, who is senior producer on The Verge’s Decoder podcast with Nilay Patel, “the word ‘producer’ means a lot of things in a lot of different contexts.” In his case — here at The Verge and in the world of audio — it means he and coproducer Kate Cox run the show’s editorial operations and logistics. “That includes doing the majority of the scheduling and planning, selecting and booking guests, and writing scripts and packaging episodes from the start of a pitch to when it goes out to your podcast player of choice alongside The Verge’s website.”

Prior to working at The Verge, Nick was a writer and reporter for 10 years, covering a variety of different beats — mostly gaming, social media companies, and San Francisco-based startups. But after spending most of the 2010s in California, he says, “I moved back to my hometown of Rochester in western New York at the start of covid, and I’ve been remote ever since. That has meant putting a lot more time and effort into my home setup to make it a space I want to spend time in for the majority of my days.”

Kylie Robison is The Verge’s senior reporter covering artificial intelligence. Previously, she worked at Fortune, where she covered Twitter; before that, she covered software developer culture (“a beat,” she says, “I made up and loved”) for Business Insider. “I’ve always been obsessed with technology in an extremely online way,” she adds, “and The Verge is filled with people who are on the same wavelength.”

We asked Kylie to tell us a bit about her home office setup.

Kristen Radtke is The Verge’s creative director; she works with the art team to create the visuals for stories and custom features. “Before this,” she explains, “I was art director for the small arts and culture magazine The Believer, and in a previous life, I worked in independent book publishing.”

We asked her to show us her home office, and she graciously obliged.

David Pierce is The Verge’s editor-at-large. What is an editor-at-large? It means, he says, “well, nothing. I write stories and make podcasts, and I write a newsletter called Installer, but mostly, I spend a lot of time trying to convince people to like to-do list apps as much as I do.”

We asked him to tell us a bit about his workspace.

Jess Weatherbed, news writer for The Verge, started her professional career in a way she describes as “a bit strange for a journalist” — in prosthetics and wig making. However, she was no stranger to tech. For around 16 years, she’s been using drawing tablets to support her design hobbies, everything from digital illustration and animation to 3D sculpting. “I initially learned to build computers to support my nerdier gaming hobbies,” she says, “and my love of tech and gadgets has grown from there.”

We asked Jess to talk about her workspace.

Joanna Nelius is a recent addition to The Verge’s staff, having joined us a little over a month ago to become our new laptop reviewer. But while she’s been reviewing laptops, desktops, and PC hardware for her entire career, she is also going to report on broadband and education. “I’m particularly excited to start reporting on the latter two,” she says, “because that’s what I used to cover when I wrote for Gizmodo and ended up falling in love with those beats.”

In fact, Joanna’s background is in creative writing, literature, and teaching. “But with the current chaos surrounding generative AI,” she explains, “and the push for more tech courses, including digital media literacy in cash-strapped schools, it feels like I’m in the right place at the right time.” She is also working on a memoir and several short stories.

Victoria Song (known to the staff as Vee) is The Verge’s senior reviewer, covering all things wearable, health tech, and fitness tech. She says, “I’ve been on this beat for almost seven years now. Before The Verge, I was at Gizmodo doing the same thing. Before that, I was at PC Magazine and had a stint as a laptop reviewer before pivoting to the wearable beat.”

And before that? “I cut my teeth at The Yomiuri Shimbun, both in Japan and in their New York City bureau. In Japan, I was an editor for their English-language edition and coincidentally ended up as a junior reporter in New York when I moved back home — though the role was more like a stringer, reporter, and translator rolled up into one. I covered everything ranging from #BlackLivesMatter protests and the annual UN General Assembly to factories in Baton Rouge that made baseball bats favored by Japanese players.”

Nathan Edwards has been at The Verge for about a year and a half as senior reviews editor, editing reviews and managing part of the reviews team. He also works on our buying guide program. He adds, “Aside from a couple of short freelancing stints, I spent most of my career before this at Maximum PC (RIP), a print magazine, and then at Wirecutter, where I worked for seven years. So it’s been reviews and buying guides and writing about consumer tech pretty much the whole time.”

He took some time to tell us about his workspace.

Kate Cox is one of two senior producers running the Decoder podcast here at The Verge. Before she joined The Verge last summer, she had a decade and change as a reporter and editor covering tech policy, consumer tech issues, video games, and occasionally, nerd culture for several outlets.

She took some time to tell us about her workspace.

Tom Warren is a senior editor here at The Verge who covers “mostly anything Microsoft, PC, and console gaming.” He recently redid his home workspace and offered to tell us about his new setup; impressed with its practicality and neatness (which is nothing like mine, but let’s pass over that), I immediately took advantage of his offer.

Here’s some of what Tom has to say about his new work-at-home environment.

Alex Heath is deputy editor at The Verge who works with our creators team and covers Meta along with the social media industry more broadly. Covering Meta in-depth has also led him to cover augmented and virtual reality. He’s also the co-host of the newest season of Land of the Giants, Vox Media’s narrative podcast series on the tech giants. This season is, of course, all about Meta.

Tell us about your desk.

As Alice Newcome-Beill describes herself, she’s currently the “commerce / deals writer for The Verge, 35 years old, a Scorpio, and a chaotic neutral.” With the other members of the commerce team, she helps handle The Verge’s daily deals posts and newsletters, in addition to maintaining the “best deals” announcements and other buying guides across the site.

Tell us about the two desks in this space. Where did you get them, and where in your home have you placed them?

Between stints at Engadget, Gizmodo, and CNET, Sean Hollister became part of the small group that co-founded The Verge back in 2011. He has worn a lot of hats in the past decade: reviewing products, running the newsroom, training and editing new writers, putting spicy editorials on the site, starring in a few videos, liveblogging, and shaping coverage where he can. He’s currently a Senior Editor.

Tell us a little about yourself. What do you like doing at The Verge?

Makena Kelly has covered politics since the onset of the Trump administration when she was living in Washington, DC; she added tech policy when she began working for The Verge in 2018. The staff here caught a glimpse of her workspace recently during a Slack discussion, and after everyone admired how attractive it was, we knew we had to feature Makena on our next “What’s on your desk?”

What do you cover here at The Verge?

Video is an important part of The Verge, and Vjeran Pavic is an important part of our video team. His official title is senior video director; for the most part, he’s the one behind the lens creating videos and photos for our site. He is also (unofficially) our in-house drone expert. His workspace at home is deceptively simple; we asked him for a tour.

Tell me a little about yourself. How did you get to The Verge?

Antonio G. Di Benedetto is relatively new to The Verge, but he brings with him a load of talent in a variety of specialties. Besides being a commerce writer, he is an experienced photographer, a tech experimenter, a gamer, and a fountain pen enthusiast.

Someone that diverse in his interests has got to be pretty interesting himself. We asked Antonio to talk about his desk, his tech, and his work.

When you have a tendency to collect stuff, it’s difficult to create a detritus-free space in which to work. It’s even harder when you have to do it on the fly because you’re suddenly working at home rather than in an office. Adi Robertson, senior reporter for The Verge, has actually managed to do that, and in this chapter of “What’s on your desk,” she explains how she has organized a place in which she can concentrate and do her fabulous reporting without distraction.

Tell me a little about yourself. What is your background, and what do you do at The Verge?

If you’re a frequent reader of The Verge, I’m sure the name Chaim Gartenberg is known to you. He’s been reporting and commenting here for years on everything from the latest AMD Ryzen processors to the new trailer of The Witcher, and has become a familiar sight on videos as well.

Chaim recently moved to a new space, which means he got a chance to set up a new space for working at home. We asked him to talk about it.

Podcasting can be a fun and incredibly creative field — but also a very demanding one. Your skill set not only has to include familiarity with a variety of audio hardware and software, but you also need imagination, a good feel for what will sound good to your audience, and a very sensitive ear.

Andrew Marino is The Verge’s senior audio director, and is responsible for producing almost everything you hear in our podcasts. We asked him to show us his desks — both of them — and tell us a bit about them, and about himself.