Reuters adds two to DC bureau

Kevin Krolicki, the Washington bureau chief for Reuters, sent out the following to the staff on Sunday:

I’m happy to announce two additional hires for the Washington bureau along with a pair of new assignments:

Jonathan Landay will join us to cover national security. Jonathan arrives from the Washington bureau of McClatchy, formerly the Knight Ridder newspaper chain. He is best known for his critical coverage of the Bush administration’s case for the war in Iraq, reporting that paired him with Warren Strobel. (Yes, we are getting that band back together.) Jonathan was also a Pullitzer Prize finalist in 2014 for reporting on the CIA’s monitoring of Senate computers used in compiling a report on torture. Before Knight Ridder, Jonathan worked for The Christian Science Monitor and UPI with postings in Belgrade, New Delhi and Hong Kong. He began his career covering state politics in New Jersey. Jon is a graduate of George Washington University.

David Shepardson will join Reuters to cover regulatory policy with a focus on technology and telecommunications. The plan is for David to cover how policies set here shape and constrain the way business develops for powerhouses like Amazon and disruptive innovators like Uber.  David joins us from The Detroit News, where he has been Washington bureau chief. For those of us who have competed against him on the auto beat, David needs no introduction. For everyone else: David won a Loeb and SABEW awards for his coverage of the GM and Chrysler bailouts in 2010 and a SABEW first-prize award for his coverage of Detroit’s bankruptcy.  Among recent highlights, he broke news of Takata’s record-setting recall and interviewed President Obama in January.

At the same time, Emily Stephenson has joined the team covering the presidential election. Emily joined Reuters in Chicago and has worked in Washington for the past five years. Most recently, she was team leader for the re-launched Washington Speed Team, an operation that is core to our competiveness on the first breaks for the biggest stories of the day. A native of North Carolina, Emily is a graduate of the University of North Carolina. A 2012 special she helped report and write contributed to a reversal in government policy that spared thousands of rural post offices from closure.

Finally, I am also pleased to announce that Andy Sullivan has joined the domestic policy team, focusing on initiative stories with a national scope and on high-profile congressional and White House coverage. A Washington bureau veteran, Andy brings strong writing, reporting and multimedia skills to the team.  He has covered Bain Capital, budget wars in Congress and Hurricane Katrina. Andy was a Loeb Award winner for coverage of the subprime mortgage crisis in 2007. Before becoming a journalist, he also toured in a country-punk band.

Please join me in welcoming Jonathan and David to Reuters and in congratulating Emily and Andy on their new assignments.