WSJ taps Pulitzer winner to cover biz regulation/industry safety

Wall Street Journal business editor Dennis Berman sent out the following staff announcement on Tuesday:

We are pleased to announce a new appointment for Alexandra Berzon, who has spent the last four years covering gambling and casinos for the Journal with great distinction.

Ali’s new beat is business regulation and industrial safety. Ali will be covering this increasingly fraught and fractious issue from all sides – misguided or over-enforced government rules, workers exposed to bad working conditions and the causes and effects of industrial accidents.

Regulation and business are growing ever more intertwined, with great impact on the economy at large. This is a key area of coverage for the Journal and Ali will be working closely in her reporting with the Washington, D.C., bureau and with corporate beat reporters.

The new beat is something of a return to roots for Ali. In 2009 her investigations into a spate of construction worker deaths on the Las Vegas Strip won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service.

Ali joined the Journal in 2009 as the L.A.-based gambling-industry reporter and has delivered numerous memorable stories and scoops – from the man who gambled away $127 million to a dramatic split within Steve Wynn’s casino empire to famous poker pros who ended up being accused of running a Ponzi scheme.

Alexandra was also a key member of Journal teams that reported the Deep Water Horizon crisis, covered mass shootings in both Colorado and Arizona, jumped on the tragic fertilizer plant explosion in Texas and examined the roots of the Tea Party.

She graduated from Vassar College and U.C. Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. She will remain based in Los Angeles.