The New York Times announced on April 5 that Tripp Mickle, a journalism minor from the class of 2003, is joining the newspaper as a tech reporter based in San Francisco as he returns to covering Apple, one of the world’s largest and most influential companies. 

The Times wrote of its new hire: “Tripp is joining after eight years of writing about Apple, Google, bourbon and beer for The Wall Street Journal. During that time, he wrote about Jony Ive’s unexpected departure from Apple; the rise of a company procurement star known as the Blevinator; Tim Cook’s efforts to court close ties with President Trump; and the bargain that overextended Airbnb hosts said they made ‘with the devil.’

“In May, Tripp’s first book, “After Steve: How Apple Became a Trillion-Dollar Company and Lost Its Soul,” will be published by William Morrow, a division of HarperCollins, in an international release. It’s the inside story of the unspoken power struggle between Tim Cook and head designer Jony Ive after the death of Steve Jobs.

“Tripp also spent some quality time on the “sin beat,” chronicling bourbon shortages, beer acquisitions and — just recently — the inside story of heavy metal whiskies. Before The Journal, Tripp spent eight years covering the Olympics for SportsBusiness Journal. He also interned as a sportswriter at Newsday, where he was assigned to ‘Steinbrenner watch’ alongside then-Times clerk Michael S. Schmidt. Their job was to shout questions at the late Yankees owner as he exited the stadium, on the off-chance Steinbrenner might grumble about a player or manager.”

Tripp is from Charlotte and received his master’s degree from Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism after covering sports for a small newspaper in Lake Tahoe after his graduation from Wake Forest. He wrote for the Old Gold and Black and was an intern at The Business Journal in Greensboro while an undergraduate.