UNC hires LaRoche to teach business journalism

The University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill has hired Michelle LaRoche to teach business journalism.

LaRoche, currently the Baldwin Chair in Business and Financial Journalism at the University of South Carolina’s School of Journalism and Mass Communications, earned a master’s degree at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education.

Her teaching focus is on covering business, finance and economics — and how an understanding of business can improve coverage of other topics like education, entertainment and sports.

LaRoche’s professional career has included positions with Dow Jones Newswires, The Wall Street Journal and National Public Radio after beginning her career as a copy editor with Foster’s Daily Democrat in New Hampshire.

With Dow Jones Newswires, she rose to managing editor of Real-Time News, supervising 75 editors responsible for publishing pieces that ranged from headlines to features on business, financial and economic news from reporters across the Americas.

As development editor for The Wall Street Journal, LaRoche managed the recruitment, training, development and advancement of talent for the organization. In that role, she frequently visited universities and eventually led the development of an advanced business reporting syllabus with four colleagues who taught the class at UNC-CH.