The Scoop
Fortune’s Hong Kong-based chairman joined an editorial interview with President Donald Trump this week, an unusual move that has fueled concerns on the publication’s staff.
The chairman, Victor Pang, “was there as a mere observer to the hour-long interview conducted solely and entirely by” Alyson Shontell, Fortune’s editor-in-chief, a spokesman for the company, Patrick Reilly, said.
The interview, which is yet to be published, was a major booking for the publication, which has attempted to refocus its editorial energies around a combination of high-profile interviews, original business reporting, and turn-and-burn, AI-powered aggregation.
Staff were excited for the interview, which signaled the company’s continued journalistic relevance. But Pang’s presence at the editorial conversation came as a surprise to the staff.
Pang — a Hong Kong-based lawyer representing the company’s CEO, Thai billionaire Chatchaval Jiaravanon — does not have an editorial role at the company. But with the departure of former Fortune CEO Anastasia Nyrkovskaya last year, Pang has increasingly been seen internally as the company’s de facto chief executive. According to one person familiar with internal conversations, Pang was pleased with the Trump interview booking, and has been pushing the magazine to put the president on an upcoming cover.
Some members of the company’s editorial union discussed the booking in private messages this week, and debated whether Pang’s attendance at the White House was just about Fortune’s journalism. A page for Pang’s law firm notes that he has “worked on large-scale listings of various state-owned enterprises and private companies.”
Fortune’s interview came as Trump was preparing for a much anticipated trip to China, where the president was joined by a host of major American business figures hoping to cultivate a friendlier commercial relationship between the two countries despite increasing geopolitical tensions. Owner Jiaravanon’s family controls one of Thailand’s largest companies, and has invested in businesses across China and Southeast Asia.
The interview is set to be published this week.
Notable
- Fortune has been among the most aggressive and experimental in its use of AI in journalism. Semafor reported earlier this year that Shontell’s stewardship of AI in Fortune’s reporting earned a private kudos from Wall Street Journal editor-in-chief Emma Tucker, who told her in an email shared with Semafor that “anyone who doesn’t get what you are doing at fortune, or thinks it is ‘wrong’, should get out of journalism fast!”
- Last year, Adweek’s Mark Stenberg reported that Nyrkovskaya left the publication after clashes with Pang.