Categories: OLD Media Moves

WSJ hires Bowers to edit Real Time Economics

Becky Bowers, a journalist with the Tampa Bay Times and Politifact for the past 12 years, has been hired by the Wall Street Journal to edit its Real Time Economics blog.

She will start Sept. 2.

Bowers currently directs digital operations for PolitiFact’s national, state and international sites and mobile products — and sometimes, just for fun, writes and edits for PolitiFact.com.

Bowers has worked for the Tampa Bay Times since 2002 as a copy editor, wire editor, copy chief, business graphics reporter, online business editor, deputy business editor, deputy government & politics editor and PolitiFact staff writer.

As deputy business editor at the Times from January 2009 to February 2011, Bowers helped edit a team of reporters for print and Web, with special focus on tailoring money.tampabay.com for local readers. That take led to the site’s recognition as the Best in Business for large news sites by the Society of American Business Editors and Writers.

She also spent six months on loan to the metro team as local business reporter, then chipped in to boost coverage of 2010 election as reporter for politics team and fact-checking site PolitiFact Florida.

Bowers studied journalism at her hometown California State University, Chico.

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.