WSJ names Hilsenrath a senior correspondent

Wall Street Journal Washington bureau chief Paul Beckett sent out the following announcement on Friday:

All,

I am delighted to announce that Jon Hilsenrath will take on a new role as Senior Correspondent, focusing on writing signature stories on the currents shaping the U.S. economy in the context of the 2020 presidential election.

Jon can tell this critically important story for us like no one else. He is one of the most respected economic minds in journalism today, with a deep grasp of the issues sweeping the country that will play a huge part in determining how the electorate votes. And this is an area where his reportorial vision has already proved indispensable to our readers: The series he and others wrote on the Great Unraveling in 2016 offered unique economic insights into why and how Donald Trump became president.

For the past two years, Jon has been Economics Editor in charge of our national and global economics coverage. He has been with the Journal since 1997, working in Hong Kong, New York and Washington DC. He was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2014 for his coverage of the Federal Reserve; part of a WSJ team that was Pulitzer finalist in 2009 for coverage of the financial crisis; and contributed on-the-ground reporting to the WSJ’s 9/11 coverage which won a Pulitzer in 2002. His colleagues in journalism have twice voted Jon among the nation’s most influential financial journalists, among many other accolades. He graduated from Duke University in 1989 and was a Knight-Bagehot Fellow and MBA graduate from Columbia Business School in 1996.

In his new role, Jon will report to Jathon Sapsford, Washington deputy coverage chief, and will work closely — as a collaborator, adviser and mentor — with reporters and editors in the economics team and other teams around the Journal. We will shortly begin the search for his successor as Economics Editor.

Please join me in congratulating Jon on his new assignment.

Thanks and best,

Paul