Vancouver daily names new business reporter

Brooks Johnson, a reporter at The Columbian in Vancouver, Wash., has been named to the business news desk.

In an email to the staff, business editor Gordon Oliver wrote:

In his short time at The Columbian, he has shown that he is a quick learner and an aggressive reporter. He will take on the challenge of covering the oil terminal debate as it grinds to a decision as well as an endless number of businesses and economic topics that come our way.

Johnson is a University of Montana School of Journalism graduate, an alumni of the Dow Jones News Fund copy editing internship program and previously worked at the Idaho Falls Post Register and more recently at The Daily News in Longview, Wash.,

He was hired in October as the small cities reporter at The Columbian, Southwest Washington’s largest news source. He’s moving to the business desk after the departure of Aaron Corvin, an award-winning reporter.

In an email to Talking Biz News, Johnson writes, “I’m looking forward to covering the nation’s largest oil-by-rail terminal proposal and the bounty of economic stories here on the north side of the Portland metro area.”

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.