Staff Q&As: Meet business reporter Stephanie Reighart
To help you get to know our newsroom staff a bit better, a series of question-and-answer posts with each journalist will run on Mondays. This morning, meet business reporter Stephanie Reighart. You might have read her stories, like a recent one on a family-owned DVD-rental business, or read her blog posts on Common Cents, Twenty & Change or Adventure Girl.
Name: Stephanie Reighart
Lives in: York
Hometown: Columbus, Ohio
Position at the YDR: Business reporter
Years with the YDR: 1.25
Graduated from: Ohio State — BS; Dartmouth — MA
With degrees in: Natural resources and journalism, respectively
Twitter: @stephreighart
Email: sreighart@ydr.com
Google+: Stephanie Reighart
1. What made you want to become a journalist? I love to learn. Journalism gives me the opportunity to learn and share that information everyday.
2. How do you see journalism changing? Journalism is changing in the ways that people want to get their information (READ: digitally). Also, consumers of journalism expect more transparency and access to the inner workings of newsrooms and the people and organizations that are covered.
3. What do you like most about your job? The least? Geeking out on details that will never make it into the story, but still inform my writing; writing corrections — it’s so embarrassing.
4. It’s 9:30 a.m. on a day off. What are you doing? Trail running. I love to get out in the woods and explore. Trail running is great exercise and, the way I do it, I’m still moving slowly enough to observe my surroundings. I also love to let my brain wander. I stumble on ideas as I stumble through the woods.
5. What’s been your favorite project or story recently? Why? Writing about how marketers buy information about what consumers click online and what they watch on TV and even whether they own or rent their home to target them for ads. I got to talk to a bunch of people who had experienced addressable ads or teach the next generation of marketers how to target consumers. It was really fun to be exposed to that industry from the inside perspective.
6. The drink that’s on your desk right now is: Water
7. Your favorite journalism-related blog you read or Twitter feed you follow: I learn something new every time I read anything on The Atlantic.
8. What’s your favorite movie? Book? Hitchcock’s “Rear Window”; Jane Eyre.
9. What’s your favorite place in York County? Rocky Ridge County Park
10. What’s one piece of newsroom jargon that had to be explained to you? Couch. It’s a transitive verb meaning to word something in a certain manner, like “he couched it as a request, but it was an order.” I thought it meant to take out the phrase entirely; more akin to benching.
Last week, we ran a Q&A with courts reporter Rick Lee. To read all of the staff Q&A interviews we’ve done so far, click on the “Staff Q&As” under “About us” at the top of the homepage.