LaRoche hired to teach business journalism at South Carolina

Michelle LaRoche

Former Wall Street Journal journalist Michelle LaRoche has been hired as the Baldwin Business and Financial Chair in Journalism at the University of South Carolina.

She will join the faculty for the Fall 2018 semester.

She has been at Harvard University for the past year working on a master’s degree in higher education.

LaRoche was previously The Journal’s editor for development. She oversaw employee development, hiring and internships at the paper. She has been in that job since August 2013.

Before that, the 21-year Dow Jones veteran was managing editor, Real-Time Desks, at Dow Jones Newswires in New York. In that post, she managed a team of about 65 editors in an array of tasks ranging from writing headlines on breaking news to editing features to curating websites.

LaRoche was Dow Jones Newswires editor for training and recruiting from April 2008 to February 2012. Prior to that, she managed the Americas Spot News Desk. She started her Dow Jones career as a member of the corporate information services group.

LaRoche is a graduate of the University of New Hampshire and worked at Foster’s Daily Democrat in Dover, New Hampshire as a copy editor.

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.