WNYC hires Lam as poverty and economic instability reporter

Chau Lam

WNYC has hired Chau Lam will be joining as the poverty and economic instability Reporter, reporting to Karen Rouse on the economics and equity desk.

She will start on Dec. 6.

Lam has more than two decades of experience covering national and local news, and has worked on major breaking stories, including the 9/11 attacks, the Boston Marathon bombing, the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, and Occupy Wall Street protests.

At Newsday, she covered a wide range of topics, including the criminal justice system, transportation, and local politics. Her work uncovering public employees who collected both government salaries and pensions for the same job and her reporting on jet noise plaguing the areas around New York’s two major airports led to reforms at the local and state levels.

Lam shares two Pulitzer Prizes: one for coverage of the crash of TWA Flight 800 with the Newsday staff and another on the devastation of the Northridge earthquake with the Los Angeles Times staff. Her work has also earned her a New York Press Club Award and a New York Emmy.

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.