WSJ makes changes, hires in Chicago bureau

Joanna Chung, the Chicago bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal, sent out the following announcement:

All,

We’re pleased to announce some exciting additions and changes to the corporate reporting bureau based in Chicago.

Patrick McGroarty is appointed deputy bureau chief in Chicago. Pat spent the past five years in the Africa bureau, covering elections, insurgencies and fallout from the global commodity crash in nearly two dozen countries from Angola to Zimbabwe. He joined the Journal in 2009 in Berlin, where he earlier worked for the Associated Press and conducted a Fulbright scholarship. Pat studied philosophy at Boston College and cut his teeth at that city’s weekly Dorchester Reporter, chronicling political intrigue and the occasional abandoned shopping cart epidemic. Pat, who will continue reporting, will be in Chicago in August. Follow him on Twitter @patmcgroarty

Heather Haddon will join the team covering the food and agriculture industries. Heather spent the last five years at WSJ’s Greater New York section, where she covered Gov. Christie’s administration and run for president and helped break the Bridgegate scandal story as part of her New Jersey beat. She also helped cover the 2016 Republican presidential candidates, including Donald Trump. She previously did stakeouts for the New York Post and examined mortgage fraud for the Bergen Record. A New Jersey native, Heather is a graduate of Oberlin College. Heather started last month. Follow her on Twitter at @heatherhaddon

Andrew Tangel will join the bureau as a manufacturing reporter. He’s covered the New York transportation beat since early 2014. He came to the Journal and the Greater New York section by way of the Los Angeles Times, where he was a national business correspondent covering Wall Street. A native of Louisville, Ky., he studied political science at DePauw University and business journalism at Columbia University. Andrew, who is also commissioned as a Kentucky Colonel, will start in Chicago in September. Follow him on Twitter at @AndrewTangel

We’re delighted to tell you about the new WSJ obituaries column, which publishes online on Thursdays and in print on Saturdays.

The inestimable James R. Hagerty helped create and launch the new offering in the spring and has since penned three enterprising obituaries a week. Bob’s output includes the life stories of an entrepreneurial nun, a quirky finance theorist who stayed on the fringes of academia, and one of the inventors of email. Bob has a sharp eye for good subjects, both the famous and the less well-known, and is eager for your suggestions. He’s also happy to advise on how to approach such stories.

Bob most recently wrote about corporate giants like Caterpillar and 3M while covering the manufacturing beat for nearly six years. He grew up in North Dakota. He has been a reporter and editor for the WSJ for more than 30 years. His other jobs have included EU correspondent, London bureau chief and managing editor of the Asian edition. Bob is the author of “The Fateful History of Fannie Mae.” He is believed to be the only journalist in WSJ history who has written a page one story about his mom and toured more than two toilet factories. Follow him on Twitter at @JamesRHagerty

Please join us in welcoming Bob, Pat, Heather and Andrew to their new roles.