Charlotte Observer biz reporter Smoot departs

Hannah Smoot

Charlotte Observer business reporter Hannah Smoot is leaving the newspaper after three years.

She has been covering health care, aviation and energy.

Smoot was previously a city government and politics reporter at the Rock Hill Herald in South Carolina. Both papers are owned by McClatchy.

She is a graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill, where she was managing editor of The Daily Tar Heel.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.