Charlotte Observer hires two biz news staffers

The Charlotte Observer, which has lost its two banking reporters this year to Reuters and the Associated Press, named replacements on Friday.

Business editor John Arwood, in an e-mail to the staff, wrote:

Andrew Dunn will be joining us as a reporter. You may remember Andrew as a Business intern here a couple of summers ago. He revealed a new kind of mortgage scam, wrote about the push to regulate electronic cigarettes (“tobacco’s younger, shinier cousin,” Andrew wrote), and shined a light on a company that laid off about 90 people at one site, then accepted millions in state incentives to move just 60 miles away. After his Charlotte internship, Andrew moved on to the Wilmington Star News, where he has covered Brunswick County government. At the Observer, Andrew will join Kirsten Valle Pittman on the banking beat.

Steve Byers joins us as a reporter/editor. Those of you who have been around Charlotte a while might remember Steve from his time at the Charlotte Business Journal in the early ’90s. Word is, he regularly scooped us. We’re glad to have Steve, and his ability to work sources to get the exclusive story, on the Business team. In his years since leaving Charlotte, he has worked as editor or managing editor at Business Journals in Cincinnati, Birmingham and Washington, D.C. He most recently worked at The Huntsville Times, where he was business editor and later was in charge of the copy desk.

Andrew and Steve both start Oct. 3.

DISCLOSURE: Dunn is a graduate of the UNC-Chapel Hill business journalism program.