S&P Global hires Williams as retail reporter

Claire Williams

Claire Williams, who had been covering the agriculture industry for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, has been hired by S&P Global Markets to cover retail.

Her last day at the Little Rock paper was Jan. 27. She starts at S&P Global on Feb. 13. The retail beat is new for S&P Global and is part of its editorial expansion.

Williams has been at the Democrat-Gazette since August 2015 covering Tyson Foods and agribusiness. This past summer, she also covered German politics for Süddeutsche Zeitung on the Arthur F. Burns Fellowship while writing business stories from Europe for the Democrat-Gazette.

She interned at the Charlotte Observer and The (Raleigh) News & Observer while in college. Williams is a UNC-Chapel Hill graduate.

She’s the third business reporter to leave the Little Rock paper this year. Business reporter Jessica Seaman was among those laid off earlier this year. And Chris Bahn, the downtown development reporter, left for a job at an Arkansas business editing special publications and doing marketing.

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.