Knoxville paper names new energy reporter

Brittany Crocker

Brittany Crocker is the new energy reporter at the Knoxville News Sentinel in Tennessee, replacing Frank Munger, who held the beat for 35 years.

Crocker writes, “Even from Washington D.C., where I was living when I filed my first application for this position, I recalled the man who had become a household name.

“Still, the gravity did not set in until the day I took over the beat.

“At once, my carefully decorated cubicle walls were overwhelmed with flow charts, to-do lists and all-caps sticky notes reminding me which contractors handled which operations at which Energy Department site.

“I’ve covered crime, city governments, public safety and federal courts before, but I’ve never run into anything quite as complex as the News Sentinel’s energy desk. It’s got elements of federal, state and local government reporting, business reporting, environmental coverage and science writing all mixed in with the numerous small nonprofits and interest groups in Oak Ridge’s orbit.

“It probably doesn’t help that I’m only the second person here to try to figure it all out.”

Read more here.

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.