SEA Tech Media Wins Pulitzer for Coverage of Charade They Ignored for Years
Southeast Asia tech media outlet wins journalism’s top prize for exposé on ecosystem collapse... just months after hailing the same unicorns as visionaries.
SINGAPORE — The Pulitzer Board announced today that Southeast Asia’s most influential tech media outlet, StartupPulse.io, has been awarded the coveted Investigative Reporting prize… for finally reporting on the mass layoffs and crumbling unicorns they enthusiastically celebrated for five straight years.
“We were impressed by the sheer boldness of turning on companies they’d previously given ‘Startup of the Year’ awards to,” said Pulitzer spokesperson Karen Nussbaum. “It’s not easy to look your former brunch sponsor in the eye and say, ‘Hey, why are 40% of your staff being retrenched without severance?’ That takes courage.”
Until recently, StartupPulse.io was best known for headline gems like “Startup X Raises $200M to Redefine Grocery Delivery With Drones” and “Founder Under 30 Builds App to Help Other Founders Under 30”. Their editorial model largely consisted of copying and pasting funding announcements, occasionally jazzed up with the phrase “SEA’s next unicorn?” in bold.
But all that changed when StartupPulse.io noticed a sharp decline in engagement on their “Funding Round Roundups” and a suspicious spike in clicks on articles involving layoffs, fraud, and founders being sued by their own grandmothers. “We realized the readers were craving something new,” said Editor-in-Chief Darren Low. “Something with edge. Something with... accountability. Also, clicks.”
The journalistic community applauded the publication’s pivot, though some couldn’t help but note the curious timing.
“It’s impressive,” said media analyst Felicia Tan, “that they managed to go from being glorified startup groupies to crusaders for transparency overnight. Less impressive is the fact that they ignored years of red flags until the VC money slowed down.”
Others were less charitable. “This is like someone running a Ponzi scheme, then turning state’s witness and getting a book deal,” said one anonymous startup founder who claims he was ghosted by the outlet after he failed to secure a Series A. “But I guess that’s media.”
Pulitzer board members, however, were unfazed by the critiques. “Sure, it took them a while,” said Nussbaum. “But they’re here now, holding people accountable. We call that growth.”
Fresh off their Pulitzer win, StartupPulse.io says they’re just getting started. The outlet plans to double down on real journalism, including a rumored investigative piece on how startups are surviving without endless VC fuel.
They've also announced they’re “re-evaluating” their long-standing tradition of hosting fireside chats sponsored by companies currently under investigation for labor violations. “We want to avoid any perception of conflict of interest,” said Low.
Meanwhile, startups across the region are scrambling to update their PR strategies. “We used to just send them a photo of the founders smiling and they’d publish it,” said one head of comms. “Now they’re asking questions. Like, real ones. It’s terrifying.”
We write the headlines that haven’t happened yet, but probably will. Subscribe to The Rambutan for Southeast Asia’s sharpest fake news.