Sebastian joins Washington Post biz desk as assignment editor

Washington Post economy and business editor Greg Schneider and deputy business editor David Cho sent out the following staff announcement on Friday:

We are thrilled to announce that Simone Sebastian will be joining the Financial staff as an assignment editor working on policy coverage and helping to lead Wonkblog. Simone has been assistant editor in Outlook since joining the Post in July 2014 from the Houston Chronicle, where she managed the energy Web site for the paper’s business section.

Simone has an impressive combination of digital savvy and traditional editing skills. She runs the Twitter and Facebook accounts for PostEverything; has commissioned and edited some of Outlook’s most memorable pieces, including Barbara Bowman’s charges of rape against Bill Cosby; and has written provocative stories of her own, including one on battered NFL wives and another on the role violence played in the non-violent civil rights movement. She has a bachelor’s in psychology and African-American studies from Columbia, where she was city editor of the Daily Spectator, and a master’s from CUNY’s journalism school in business and multimedia reporting.

With Simone’s love of both data and words, we think she is an exciting addition who can help increase the impact of our journalism. Adam Kushner, who brought Simone to the Post, puts it well: “She has an incredibly sensitive editing intelligence. She’ll prosecute a decent concept until it becomes a great one. She doesn’t settle for insufficient reporting. She is also a great colleague.”

We can’t wait for her to get started, beginning November 16.