Former LA Times Journalist Named Reynolds Visiting Professor

Sharon Bernstein Sharon Bernstein, an award-winning editor and reporter with more than 20 years of experience at the Los Angeles Times, has been named the Donald W. Reynolds Visiting Professor in Business Journalism for the spring 2012 semester at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University. Bernstein helped direct the Times’ coverage of the 2008 financial crisis as assistant business editor. As a Times reporter, she contributed to the paper’s Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of a bank shootout in 1998 and Southern California wildfires in 2004. Other awards include first place in investigative reporting from the Los Angeles Press Club and the Harry Chapin Media award for investigative reporting on the disadvantaged. She currently serves as online editor for NBC-LA. At the Cronkite School, Bernstein will assist with business journalism courses and give presentations on business journalism for the school’s reporting courses. The position is made possible by a generous grant from the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation. The Las Vegas-based foundation also supports the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism and the Donald W. Reynolds Endowed Chair in Business Journalism at the Cronkite School. “We’re delighted to have an editor and reporter of Sharon Bernstein’s caliber to share her knowledge of business journalism with our Cronkite students,” said Andrew Leckey, president of the Reynolds Center and the Reynolds Chair at Cronkite. “Throughout her career at the Los Angeles Times, she exhibited the professionalism and investigative curiosity so important in cutting through to today’s economic realities for the reader.” Bernstein has served on the board of governors of the Society of American Business Editors and Writers and the board of directors of the Los Angeles Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. She holds a master’s degree in journalism from the University of California at Berkeley and a bachelor’s degree in political science from Washington University in St. Louis. “I am a great admirer of both the Cronkite School and the Reynolds Center,” Bernstein said. “Business journalism has never been more important, and I am honored and excited to be part of ASU’s fantastic program.” Bernstein is the Cronkite School’s third annual Reynolds Visiting Professor in Business Journalism. Leslie Wayne, business reporter for The New York Times, was the school’s inaugural visiting professor in spring 2010, and Susan Lisovicz, Wall Street reporter for CNN, was the visiting professor in spring 2011.