Dallas Biz Journal hires Tompkins as data reporter

Taylor Tompkins

The Dallas Business Journal has hired Taylor Tompkins as its new data reporter.

She will start on Aug. 27.

A Kaufman County native, Tompkins was most recently at CreditCards.com, a 15-year-old Austin-based fintech company where she works as a reporter and content curator. The personal finance site is known for helping consumers choose which card offers the best fit and deals for their lifestyle.

“Taylor’s experience gives us the opportunity to go beyond the numbers and explain why they matter,” said Business Journal editor Jeff Schnick in an email to the staff. “She will work with our reporters on breaking news, not only from The Lists, but from beat-generated stories as well.”

Prior to CreditCards.com, Tompkins worked at the San Antonio Express-News, where she led a team that analyzed high-school sports statistics and data. While there, she also dove into enterprise reporting, including a numbers-crunching story about CPS Energy that revealed how the company was running out of money to actually offer solar rebates.

Tompkins also enjoyed a stint in Victoria, Texas, as a business reporter, where she started the newspaper’s weekly Business Journal.

She is a 2016 Texas State journalism graduate.

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.