Seattle Times biz reporter Roberts now covering pandemic economic recovery

Paul Roberts

Veteran Seattle Times business reporter Paul Roberts is now covering pandemic-era economic recovery as part of a $1 million grant from Microsoft Philanthropies.

Roberts will focus on downtown Seattle, neighborhood and suburban business districts, and the intersection with local governments.

He joined the paper in September 2018. Before that, Roberts was a freelance journalist who wrote about a wide range of topics — business, politics, economics, science, and social issues. His work has appeared in dozens of publications, including Outside Magazine, Rolling Stone, The Seattle Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, Harpers, The New Republic, and National Geographic.

He also worked at The Seattle Weekly and the Fayetteville (North Carolina) Observer as a reporter.

The reporting remains under the independent editorial control of The Seattle Times and will be labeled for transparency. The grant funds three positions for three years.

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.