• by Ray Schultz , September 23, 2021

The Washington Post has created a destination for readers seeking to understand and control their technology.

The new offering, “Help Desk,” will feature a variety of storytelling methods, including stories, visual guides, videos and reader chats, to shed light on often confusing tech issues, the newspaper said.

“With the creation of Help Desk, we are putting the user, not the gadget, at the forefront of our coverage, empowering our audience to better understand and control the tech in their lives,” states Christina Passariello, technology editor at WaPo. 

The Help Desk team, which is seen as part of a major expansion of The Post’s technology staff, includes Geoffrey Fowler, Heather Kelly, Danielle Abril, Tatum Hunter and Chris Velazco, led by personal technology editor Yun-Hee Kim.

At first glance, a reader might wonder if the term “Help Desk” simply means a service center for dealing with the Post’s technology. 

However, Help Desk is subtitled, “Making tech work for you,”  and includes departments such as Tech in your life, Tech at work, Your data and privacy, Internet Access, What’s New and Ethical Issues. The lead article on Thursday is “Privacy Reset: A guide to the important settings you should change now.”

Passariello adds: “Now more than ever, technology is involved in almost every aspect of our days, from the workplace to our personal lives, and navigating the conversations and issues surrounding it all has become increasingly difficult with so much information to digest.”