Get Known. PR & Media Podcast

This year at the  APS Global Physics Summit in Denver, Colorado, where 14000 physicists gather to talk about breakthroughs in science and technology, I had the chance to get to know Karmela Padavic-Callaghan from New Scientist, and they kindly agreed to sit down with Get Known for an interview about their work. 

Karmela is a PhD physicist turned science communicator who you will hear started their journey in physics at the age of 12 and never stopped learning about how math can describe the world we live in.  As a scientist turned journalist, there has been a path of learning by fire that I think every tech and science person can appreciate when it comes to press communication.  And in this world of what seems to be an AI takeover as it pressures traditional media, Karmela provided the critical reminder that humanity is still the thing that wins the day and that we need to use it to our advantage, whether you are trying to approach the press or you are the press. 

When you listen to this interview, get traditional. You might want to have a pen and paper handy to jot down notes because Karmela’s insightful experience and advice will help any tech and science person gain the encouragement and confidence needed to make your best outreach and interviews. 

Recently, 14000 physicists showed up in Denver, Colorado, for the APS, American Physical Society’s combined March and April meeting for 2026. Among them was the 2025 Nobel Prize winner in physics, John Martinis, who is also now CTO and co-founder of a quantum computing company called Qolab. 

While many of us are still getting used to the computers on our desks, John Martinis has spent his career building a completely different kind of machine that uses the laws of quantum mechanics to process information. He, John Clarke, and Michel Devoret were awarded the 2025 Nobel Prize for proving that these "quantum computers" could finally solve problems that would take a traditional supercomputer thousands of years to finish. Their work marks the moment science fiction officially became scientific reality because these breakthroughs in "quantum supremacy" are set to transform everything from how we discover new medicines to how we secure our digital lives.

This podcast mixes the technical details of quantum computing and the possibilities, along with the stories from John about how his life has changed with so much press attention and selfies. John is so good at interviewing and switching between the technical descriptions and stories about his journey. If you are a technical or scientific person who needs to talk to the press, this podcast is an amazing chance to see how this is done in practice. You'll hear about topics that are incredibly complex, well beyond a non-physicist's understanding, and also get a glimpse into the personal, human experiences of a Nobel laureate.

I want to give a special thanks, as this podcast is done in cooperation with George Schwartz from Quantum Computing Report, who was covering APS this year. Whether you are technical or not, or into quantum or not, please listen through and learn from the tips and tricks John and George bring to the table in this interview. 

In this episode, we had the pleasure of talking with Petri Burtsoff from Monocle. Petri is the reporter in Finland for this international news and deep dive publication with a headquarters in London, but a huge international readership. 

If you are a regular Monocle listener, Petri is probably a familiar voice, and likely you have seen his writings from Finland, but he also has a huge international experience from Africa to Italy and London. He brings all this together to provide more than 150 stories a year to the Monocle.  We dive deep into not only what the Monocle covers, but he also shares a deeper insight into how the editorial processes work for those who are interested in how they choose their stories to cover.  

We also talk about the comparisons between Finnish and other Nordic reporting to styles in the UK and how they are both different and similar to each other. I think this will be very useful for companies in the Nordics who are used to a certain style of discussion in interviews vs the way things are done in other international environments.

I was so interested in how Petri happens to be a person who has adapted so well and has even taken on some of the mannerisms of the cultures he has experienced over the years. I think this has made him into such an international and interesting person. 

You can find and contact him at https://www.burtsoff.com/

Today's episode is, extraordinarily, in Swedish. Join us as we talk to Matilda Andersson, news editor at Breakit magazine, who writes about Swedish business in general and Swedish startups in particular. Per-Ola Mjömark, who spends lots of his time on the production side of our podcast, sits in as our guest interviewer. Enjoy!

In September, we traveled to Washington, DC, and got to spend 2 days at the Quantum World Congress, a gathering of all the best minds and companies in the quantum computing industry.  This was the place to see up close the advancements in this growing industry, which is poised to shake up the world in the next 5 to 10 years.  Not being a physicist, there was admittedly a lot of science that was presented and flew way above my head, but the business side of quantum definitely was clear. 

Like many scientific or niche industries, they have their own media, and in this episode, I had the pleasure of talking with Doug Finke, managing editor of the Quantum Computing Report, which he founded more than 10 years ago. 

Many people we spoke to at Quantum World Congress call Doug the “Godfather of the quantum computing community”. His creation of this media is a testament to finding an area that was emerging and under-reported, then, over time, turning it into a go-to source for everyone in this industry. It was so interesting to hear about and understand from his point of view the growth of quantum computing from a science project to a now-emerging mainstream industry. He has been there the whole way. 

As a result, not only did we talk about media but also, but Doug also provided a bit of history and understanding of quantum computing itself. So consider this a bit of a primer for those of you not familiar with the technology and what it will impact in the future.

There is so much to learn from niche media like this that can be applied to other emerging technologies. Doug took the time to compare the history of quantum to the rise of the silicon chip and classic computing.  

Companies have a tendency to make the same kinds of mistakes in approaching journalists with their stories, and not doing their homework. Doug gives some great advice for companies that want to get into quantum specific media, but also that can be applied to all media.

In this episode, we had the pleasure of talking with Jill Martin Wrenn who’s 20+ years of experience ranges from CNN and the BBC to her own podcast, “How to Build a Village” where she interviews a wide range of people from authors and entrepreneurs to journalist and others who are building global communities. Jill is also a teacher and media coach. 

Jill actually started out as an actress. Her journalist experience began at CNN in New York and eventually took her to London as a producer.  We talk about her years in business news, podcasting, and her freelance work. We also dive into the future of new media and legacy traditional news in this new era along with the blurry differences between U.S. and European media.

Jill is particularly interested in founder stories. We talked a bit about how founders can better approach media people like herself. She dives into real examples of how companies have impressed her with their approach and the value of humanity, flexibility, and vulnerability that leads to some of the best stories. 

Jill had so many great insights from working with editors to understanding different cultures to what’s missing from today's education. There is so much to be learned from her sharing her experience. Enjoy!  

In this episode, we had the pleasure of talking with Yuko Endo from TNL Mediagene in Tokyo, Japan.  Over the years we have rarely had the chance to speak with Japanese media so it was quite a treat to talk with Yuko who is the Vice President of the group that publishes the Japanese versions of some very popular U.S. magazines including Business Insider Japan, Gizmodo Japan, and Digiday Japan.

This was Yuko’s first time at Slush so we started off by chatting about her first impressions of the conference and what she was looking to get out of it. We talked about how she got into journalism and her journey into editing and publishing. She also mentioned that the Slush model is a great example for Japan to follow in entrepreneurial business culture.  

We then spoke a bit about the differences between Japan’s media and other media around the world. Yuko and her boss represent just a few female leaders in journalism there.  We continued by talking about how to approach media in Japan and how the process of publishing stories works. In short, knowing the right people is important along with providing information in Japanese. 

 I think one of the biggest surprises for me was the similarities between Japanese and Finnish media culture. For example, embracing failure and taking risks is often still difficult. But facts and honesty are very important when reporting the news and keeping people’s trust.. 

We did also talk about how Western media gets things wrong in Japan. One way is providing pure translations of news and press which does not fly. Things need to be localized for Japanese markets and it's not easy. There is simply so much to get wrong when you don’t know the culture, mindset, or habits. I guess that is true no matter where you go.

Veera Honkanen is the lone California-based correspondent for Finland’s largest business publication Kauppalehti. She is situated right in the heart of Silicon Valley where so many European companies try to break their way into the U.S. market. But Veera actually covers much more than just tech and in our conversation, we get into her wide range of topics from business to politics. 

We started by talking about how she got the California assignment and how working outside the country is different than being a reporter inside Finland.  She shares about her daily work, some of the tools she uses in her reporting, and the editorial process for a foreign correspondent.  We talk a bit about AI, AI tools, and their impact on journalism. She also gives some advice on what it takes to be a story worth writing and this led to a discussion about differences in attitudes towards “failure” in the U.S. vs. Finland.

Living in America is still a work in progress for Veera. There is a lot of trial and error to understand the culture but she has learned to adopt some American ways of working including the need for “just going for it”. She still gets approval for big stuff she wants to cover but she has learned to move fast and she says that has been an interesting personal adaptation. 

Veera gave lots of real-life examples from her reporting which made this interview full of insightful nuggets. We ended up talking about how doing business and getting covered in such a big place as the U.S. requires more than just a good product but an excellent story to compete with all the many excellent stories that are out there coming from the market.  The successful companies are well prepared beyond just having a product that does a job better than others. As Veera says, you need to be able to tell what emotionally drives a company forward and very often an interesting person who is willing to tell a bigger story. All this led to the general question of whether we are too comfortable with our lives in Finland and that maybe we need to find ways of getting more companies outside their comfort zone to reach more success.

Jennifer Brown is the executive editor of CBS News Radio based out of New York. We got the chance to sit down with her at the NAB (National Association of Broadcasters) event in Las Vegas in April. Jennifer and her team are responsible for all of the radio news journalism and broadcasts for CBS both in the US and around the world. We started our conversation talking about how Jennifer got into the business of radio news and then got into some of the basics about how the news we hear each day gets from the reporters out in the field, through the editors, to the anchors, and to our ears. 

There are close to 700 stations CBS Radio feeds the news people rely on each day and what I learned is that keeping the pulse of everything that is happening at the rapid-fire pace of today’s media and social media is like juggling 50 balls in the air at the same time. The newsroom has to work like a well-oiled machine and Jennifer is constantly making on-the-spot decisions about what stories are most important at that moment and what markets it is relevant to. In short, This is a super high-pressure job and with today’s mass and social media, the newsroom has little or no breaks in the firehose of content they have to sort through 24 hours a day. One of the cool things about this interview is that Jennifer was constantly using real examples of things that were happening at the moment as we got into understanding storytelling and the relevancy of those stories in the daily new cycle. Sometimes the story is not the event but the meaning of the story or a part of the event that has a wider application to people’s lives.  No matter what, it must be authentic and the editors are constantly working to capture that authenticity in addition to sharing the facts.. Jennifer’s core work focuses on breaking news from the U.S. but we also talked about some of the differences and story requirements for European stories to make it into the US media cycle. Radio broadcasting also has its differences from TV and video broadcasts. Jennifer helped give a picture of the challenges, behind-the-scenes work, and dedicated teams needed to pull all this off. 

If you ever wanted to know how the modern American newsroom functions and gets news out, this is the podcast for you.  Here is the interview with CBS Radio’s Executive Editor Jennifer Brown. Enjoy.

In April this year, Get Known got the chance to head to the U. S. National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) event in Las Vegas.  The event gave us an opportunity to interview Dan Shelley the President and CEO of the Radio Television Digital News Association or RTDNA. As you will hear, Dan has been a long-time journalist and newsroom leader who has had experiences over the decades setting the standard for how the biggest news organizations deliver news. Over that time he has been helping the industry transition from its analog roots to the digital area. 

In our interview, we start with some history of the RTDNA and how it works today. We then get into the constitutional purpose of journalism for the American public and some of the differences between that and Europe’s democracies.  Dan’s own background is itself a history lesson in how broadcast journalism and digital news evolved in the U.S. We get into talking about the production of digital news, the advocacy work of RTDNA on behalf of journalists, and news ethics in a world increasingly driven by social media and polarized information. 

The US broadcasting industry and how news is made in Europe have many similarities but have so many interesting differences from how things are done. As we in Europe engage with US media and make our mark, it is so important to take these understandings into consideration. The market in the U.S. is so big and diverse. But like everywhere, social media and general digitalization have been huge factors in how information is consumed and it is great to see there are people like Dan Shelley in the mix helping the industry grow and develop.