Categories: OLD Media Moves

Charlotte Observer hires biz reporter from US News

Katherine Peralta, who most recently covered the economy for U.S. News, has joined The Charlotte Observer’s business news team, covering retail and also working as an early-morning online reporter.

On the retail beat, she will cover the Fortune 500 retailers based in the Charlotte area, including Lowe’s Home Improvment and Family Dollar, as well as covering shopping trends and taking over the Observer’s highly popular retail blog. In the early mornings, she’ll work across beats, posting Business news to the web.

Peralta, who has family in Charlotte, has a master’s from the Medill School at Northwestern University.

Peralta takes over the retail beat from Ely Portillo, who will now cover commercial real estate and development. Portillo, in turn, takes over that beat from Observer veteran Eric Frazier, who has moved to the newsroom’s editorial board as an associate editor.

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.