What does the Venn intersection of journalists and inventors look like?

November 15, 2009 1:55 PM

I've been following the development of the CrunchPad with some interest. It's made me wonder, are there any famous examples in history of journalists also being successful inventors/innovators?
posted by runkelfinker to Grab Bag (6 answers total)

Ben Franklin comes to mind.
posted by Zed at 2:06 PM on November 15, 2009 [1 favorite]

Christopher Sholes, typewriter. Not to be snarky, but the CrunchPad is not on the market yet, isn't it too early to call it a success?
posted by fixedgear at 2:33 PM on November 15, 2009

Response by poster: Who's calling the CrunchPad a success? It may well prove to be vapourware. My question is whether there are any historical examples of journalists also being successful inventors/innovators.
posted by runkelfinker at 3:02 PM on November 15, 2009

Figures such as Dziga Vertov, Henri Cartier-Bresson and Ernest Hemingway are certainly both journalists and innovators, through perhaps not "inventors" per se.
posted by oulipian at 3:13 PM on November 15, 2009

The Wright Brothers:
http://www.nasm.si.edu/wrightbrothers/who/1889/printers.cfm
posted by at at 9:40 PM on November 15, 2009

Best answer: I assume you mean technical inventors, not just innovators in their fields.

Rufus Porter might be one of the better examples, though Christopher Sholes is likely far more widely known. The most widely used product would of course be the one invented by László Bíró.

Online, there are a number of examples such as Adrian Holovaty and Om Malik [more].
posted by dhartung at 9:46 PM on November 15, 2009 [1 favorite]