Barack Obama is to guest edit Wired at the end of October, the first time a sitting president has edited a magazine.
In an article announcing Obama’s involvement, the magazine said the “completely bespoke” issue would focus on frontiers in areas such as urban planning, cybersecurity, medicine and artificial intelligence. The issue will be sold on newsstands from 25 October.
His editorship is designed to coincide with a White House conference on the topic which aims top “bring together some of the world’s leading innovators in Pittsburgh to discuss how investing in science and technology frontiers will help improve lives, including progress and investments that are keeping America and Americans on the cutting edge of innovation”.
Wired editor-in-chief Scott Dadich said Obama’s involvement followed in the footsteps of the country’s founding fathers and leaders who had been at the forefront of technological innovation.
“When the founders wrote the Declaration of Independence and the constitution, they were at the bleeding edge of Enlightenment philosophy and technology,” he said.
“Franklin was talking about crazy stuff like electricity and communications networks. Paine gave up the copyright to Common Sense so it could get wider publication.”
“Jefferson was radically rethinking design and land use. We want to wrestle with the idea of how today’s technology can influence political leadership. And who better to help us explore these ideas than President Obama?”
Obama has previously written about feminism for Glamour magazine, which is also owned by Wired publisher Condé Nast.
