WSJ names new banking reporting team

Wall Street Journal money and investing editor Francesco Guerrera sent out the following staff announcement on Friday:

It is with great pleasure that we announce two moves further strengthening our excellent banking coverage at a time of unprecedented change in the financial sector.

Dan Fitzpatrick, who has covered J.P. Morgan Chase and Bank of America with a series of distinguished scoops and insightful features will become a senior special writer while continuing to cover J.P. Morgan. He will work with our peerless team of banking reporters to focus on breaking stories and writing analysis pieces on topics that affect a broad swath of financial institutions and important parts of both the U.S. and the global economy.

Dan has covered banking for the Journal since 2008. This year he was part of the Journal’s world-beating coverage of the “London Whale” fiasco at J.P. Morgan, detailed the many stages of cost-cutting grief at Bank of America and shown how tightly the biggest banks must notch their belts to fit into their shrunken britches.

He has broken stories on Bank of America’s negotiations with the U.S. over $20 billion in additional aid, a secret regulatory sanction requiring the bank to overhaul its board and BofA’s landmark $8.5 billion settlement with mortgage investors in 2011, and was the first to report that BofA’s board had named Brian Moynihan as CEO.

Dan was born in Evanston, Ill., and graduated from the University of Missouri with a B.A. in journalism. From 1998 to 2008, he was a staff writer at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, where in 2006 received a citation from the Overseas Press Club for best business reporting from abroad for a series about China titled “Wild Wild East.”

Joining the team to cover Bank of America will be Shayndi Raice, most recently of our San Francisco bureau, where she covered Facebook, Groupon, Linkedin and Zynga. Shayndi starts Monday.

The tireless Shayndi has distinguished herself as a scoop-meister with her coverage of the social media universe. She broke the news that Facebook was gearing up to go public and was first to report the day Facebook would file for its IPO, which went so well. Shayndi previously covered AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile for the Journal. Earlier she covered business, real estate and transportation for the Boston Courant.

Shayndi has master degrees in journalism and politics from Columbia, a master degree in modern Jewish history from Yeshiva University and a bachelors degree in English and Jewish Studies from Yeshiva.

Both Dan and Shayndi will report to Colin Barr, our banking editor.