WSJ/Dow Jones deputy DC bureau chief leaving for academia

TALKING BIZ NEWS EXCLUSIVE

Gerald Seib, the Washington bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal, and Stephen Wisnefski, the senior editor for Americas for Dow Jones Newswires, sent out the following announcement to the staff Friday afternoon:

Rob Wells will be leaving Dow Jones after nearly a decade in the Washington D.C. bureau to start a new career as a college professor. His last day in the bureau is Nov. 18.

Rob, who most recently has served as deputy bureau chief in the combined Dow Jones Newswires/Wall Street Journal bureau, will teach business journalism for a semester starting in January at the University of South Carolina. He will serve as a visiting professor under a program sponsored by the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation to expand business journalism in the nation’s colleges. Rob plans to return to the DC area in time for the fall semester at the University of Maryland, where he has moonlighted as a journalism professor the past two years.

Rob led the Dow Jones Newswires bureau in Washington for five years and helped integrate the real time reporting of Newswires and the Wall Street Journal. Under Rob’s leadership, Newswires reporters from DC won three Clabby awards for excellence at Newswires, as well as a SABEW Best in Business award for a series of stories that explored how much money was left in the Troubled Asset Rescue Program, designed to rescue banks hobbled by the financial crisis.

Rob joined Newswires in May 2002 as deputy bureau chief. While serving as Newswires deputy, he also covered tax policy and oversaw election coverage in 2002, 2004 and 2006.

Before coming to Dow Jones, Rob covered tax and banking policy for Bloomberg Business News for four years. He also worked for 11 years as a reporter for the Associated Press, in Carson City, Nev.; Fresno, Calif.; Pikeville, Ky.; New York City; and Washington, D.C.
Please join us in wishing Rob success on his new career path.

He’ll no doubt be calling on many of you to serve as guest lecturers as he helps train the next generation of great business journalists.