WSJ names Eaton as U.S. energy editor

Wall Street Journal business editor Dennis Berman sent out the following staff promotion on Monday morning:

The Wall Street Journal is devoting significant resources to one the most important stories of our time: The renaissance of U.S. energy production, and the economic, political and environmental effects of this huge change.

We’re pleased to announce that Leslie Eaton will lead this effort as newly appointed U.S. Energy Editor, responsible for energy coverage across the gamut – from enterprising pieces on fracking and the new oil barons, to daily and real-time coverage of the companies racing to enhance production in the U.S. and abroad.

As part of this change, Leslie will lead the combined efforts of our Dallas and Houston bureaus. She will report to Business Editor Dennis Berman.

The Texas bureau chief since November 2011, Leslie joined the Journal as deputy chief in Dallas in 2008, playing an important role in our award-winning Deepwater Horizon coverage and developing an unlikely specialty in covering disasters, human and manmade.

She previously spent 14 at the New York Times, where she worked for the business, metro and national desks and spent several years covering the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina along the Gulf Coast. Her first stint at Dow Jones was at Barron’s, the iconoclastic business magazine, where she was a writer, editor and columnist.

Her new role will allow Leslie and her team to stay ahead on the huge changes rumbling through the U.S. energy industry, changing companies from behemoths like Exxon to upstarts like Halcon Resources. The sudden surge in energy production is reverberating not only through traditional oil and gas companies but also through electricity suppliers and renewable-energy operations, manufacturing and transportation – in fact, it is affecting just about everyone who drives a car or flips a light switch. Working with reporters around the globe, it will be Leslie’s responsibility to make sure we are delivering our readers the best coverage across all platforms.