HuffPo biz reporter hired by LA Times to cover economy

Chris Kirkham, a business reporter at Huffington Post since 2010, has been hired by the Los Angeles Times to cover the economy.

“Huffington Post has been a fantastic place to do in-depth journalism over the last three-and-a-half years, and I’m very grateful for all the opportunities they’ve given me,” said Kirkham in an email Thursday to Talking Biz News. “I’m very much looking forward to continuing that momentum with another group of talented editors and reporters at the Los Angeles Times.”

Kirkham, 30, has been a business reporter at the Huffington Post in New York since December 2010, where he has covered a range of topics including the business of higher education, private prisons and the environment. Previously he worked as an environmental and politics reporter at The Times-Picayune in New Orleans and has had internships at The Washington Post and the Miami Herald.

He was part of a Times-Picayune team that covered the 2010 BP oil spill. For its coverage, the newspaper won the Edward J. Meeman Award for environmental reporting from the Scripps-Howard Foundation and received second place for Columbia University’s John B. Oakes Award for environmental journalism. Chris was a finalist for young business journalist of the year from the Society of American Business Editors and Writers.

A native of Texas, Chris earned master’s and bachelor’s degrees from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.