Categories: OLD Media Moves

LA Times names housing reporter

Bill Heisel, a reporter on the Los Angeles Times California desk, is switching over to the business desk to coverÂ the mortgage meltdown, housing foreclosures and their impact on the regional economy, according to a memo from business editor Sallie Hofmeister.

Hofmeister writes, “As an investigative reporter for California since early 2006, Bill has written about a congressman who cheated on his taxes, the safety lapses in the fertility industry and the overprescription of addictive drugs at the hospital affiliated with the Betty Ford center. His personal high, however, came when he was cussed out by the mayor of Irvine for writing about the promotion of a city executive who had stolen money during a previous city job to feed his cocaine habit.

“A graduate of the University of Montana, Bill drew inspiration for his career choice from his mother, a journalism graduate of the University of Missouri who he said “was my first editor, unbeknownst to my real editors.”

“Bill joined the Orange County Register, along with his wife Jennifer Hieger, in 1999, after the couple won a Loeb for financial journalism and a Scripps Howard award for environmental reporting for exposing the sins of the dairy industry in a series for the Yakima Herald-Republic in eastern Washington. Our own Jerry Hirsch — at the time a business editor at the Register — pushed for the couple to be hired.”