Jessica Lessin Throws Intimate Party for The People She Covers
If you're considering a $400 subscription to The Information, the new tech reporting venture from star Wall Street Journal alum Jessica Lessin, you're buying more than news. As her Pacific Heights mansion launch party made clear, Lessin is still (uncomfortably) close with her Facebook husband's executive friends.
You know, the people she's supposed to write critically of and cover objectively. The San Francisco Chroniclewas at the fete, and has details on its high-level guest list:
When former Wall Street Journal reporter Jessica Lessin celebrated the launch of her journalism startup at a Pacific Heights mansion this week, the event attracted the tech A-list: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg arrived in a gray hoodie; Brit + Co founder Brit Morin brought flowers; and Twitter CEO Dick Costolo started hugging friends as soon as he walked through the door.
These high-powered tech celebrities are some of Lessin's close friends.
Lessin calls herself a "reportrepreneur," someone who not only wants to cover the tech world, but to emulate it.
Emphasis added on that last part, because, just, wowza.
It's generally frowned upon to be very close friends with the people you cover professionally, because there's an appreciable chance you will be less inclined to write true things about them, when those true things are things they'd rather the rest of the world not know are true. This has been an issue with Lessin for years. She didn't care then, I doubt she cares now, and in the Silicon Valley ethics void, her subscribers will care least of all.
Launch party invitation photo via Instagram corporate attorney Stephen J. Venuto