Reuters bolsters its DC bureau, names deputy bureau chief

Kevin Krolicki, Washington bureau chief for Reuters, sent out the following staff hire announcement:

I’m happy to announce a string of appointments that will strengthen our coverage in key areas for the Washington bureau:

Julia Harte will join us to cover the Justice Department, where she will focus on the full range of non-financial justice news, from the fight against terrorism, both domestic and foreign, to criminal justice reform, drug law enforcement, policing and civil rights. Julia comes to us from the Center for Public Integrity in Washington. She was previously an intern at The Wall Street Journal and worked briefly for National Geographic in 2013, reporting from Iraq, Kurdistan and Turkey. A Turkish speaker, she has degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia Journalism School.

Julia Edwards will move internally from the White House to the Justice Department where she will work with Julia Harte and financial crime reporting team announced earlier by Amy Stevens. Over the past year, Julia Edwards has distinguished herself in her White House coverage while remaining active in justice coverage. She joined Reuters in 2013 after stints at the Boston Globe, The National Journal, the Chicago Tribune and The Charlotte Observer. She has degrees from the Northwestern journalism school and Davidson College.

Dustin Volz will join us to cover cybersecurity from the Washington angle, including nation-state conflicts, corporate espionage, federal government hacks, surveillance and digital privacy, terror networks and recruiting and online consumer scams. He will work closely with Joseph Menn in San Francisco and Jim Finkle in Boston, as well as our own Mark Hosenball. Dustin is coming from The National Journal. He was previously a Fulbright teaching assistant in Indonesia and an intern at The Arizona Republic. A German speaker, he has degrees from Arizona State University and is finishing a fellowship in Berlin.

Lindsay Dunsmuir will become economics and Federal Reserve correspondent, reporting to David Chance. Lindsay moved from New York to Washington at the start of this year and has spent most of her time here on the Justice beat. She was Front Page Editor for the Americas as part of the top news team. She joined Reuters in 2011. Previously she was a reporter with politics.co.uk in London. She has also reported for the BBC and the Guardian. Lindsay grew up in Scotland and is an alumna of Edinburgh University and Columbia’s journalism school.

Alana Wise has joined the Washington bureau this week as a graduate trainee. She started with Reuters as an intern in New York with the election team. A native of Atlanta, Alana is a 2015 Howard University graduate and has previously worked as an intern at Fox and NBC Washington.

Yeganeh “June” Torbati has joined the Washington-based foreign policy and national security team with an initial assignment to the Pentagon. June joined Reuters in 2011 as a trainee in London and covered Iran from Dubai from in 2012 and 2013. She was part of the team behind the “Assets of the Ayatollah” special report that ran in November 2013. A native of Norman, Oklahoma, June is a graduate of Yale.

Finally Kevin Drawbaugh has been promoted to Washington deputy bureau chief. After a 12-year career as a reporter and editor in newspapers, Kevin joined Reuters in 1994 in New York as a company news reporter. He had postings in Chicago and London, where he became training editor and taught courses in financial news coverage across Europe. He came to Washington in 2001 to cover financial regulation. He later covered Congress for five years, then joined the Professional News unit in 2011 with a focus on tax news. He became Washington editor of that unit in 2014. He has continued in that post, while also serving as U.S. domestic policy editor-in-charge, for the past seven months. Julia Harte, Julia Edwards and Dustin will report to Kevin.

In his new role, Kevin will continue to oversee domestic policy from Washington while helping us elevate our coverage across the file and generate the kinds of original stories that demand attention.

Kevin’s Westlaw responsibilities will be taken over by Professional News staff in New York. Reuters congressional correspondents reporting to him will handle tax-related news coverage.

Please join me in welcoming the team to their new assignments.