Rebecca A. Smith is a reporter in the

San Francisco, California San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

, bureau of ''

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

''.

Early life and education

Smith grew up in Seattle, WA. She obtained her bachelor's degree,

Phi Beta Kappa The Phi Beta Kappa Society () is the oldest academic honor society in the United States, and the most prestigious, due in part to its long history and academic selectivity. Phi Beta Kappa aims to promote and advocate excellence in the liberal ...

and magna cum laude, from the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattl ...

. She later received her master's degree from

Mills College Mills College at Northeastern University is a private college in Oakland, California and part of Northeastern University's global university system. Mills College was founded as the Young Ladies Seminary in 1852 in Benicia, California; it was ...

in Oakland, CA.

Career

Smith started her career in journalism in 1977 as a reporter and photographer for the '' Friday Harbor Journal'' in the San Juan Islands in Washington State. A year later she joined the ''

Daily Oklahoman ''The Oklahoman'' is the largest daily newspaper in Oklahoma, United States, and is the only regional daily that covers the Greater Oklahoma City area. The Alliance for Audited Media (formerly Audit Bureau Circulation) lists it as the 59th large ...

'' where she served as a copy editor and reporter for the state desk. In 1981, she joined " The Daily Journal-American" in Bellevue, Wash. In 1985 she moved to the ''

Oakland Tribune The ''Oakland Tribune'' is a weekly newspaper published in Oakland, California, by the Bay Area News Group (BANG), a subsidiary of MediaNews Group. Founded in 1874, the ''Tribune'' rose to become an influential daily newspaper. With the declin ...

'' in California, reporting on business and in 1992 she worked for the ''

San Jose Mercury News ''The Mercury News'' (formerly ''San Jose Mercury News'', often locally known as ''The Merc'') is a morning daily newspaper published in San Jose, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is published by the Bay Area News Group, a subsidia ...

'' as a reporter, first covering the semiconductor industry and then responsible for covering consumer issues. From 1998 - 1999 she was a consumer affairs reporter for the

San Francisco Chronicle The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It was founded in 1865 as ''The Daily Dramatic Chronicle'' by teenage brothers Charles de Young and Michael H. de Young. The ...

. Smith began working as an energy reporter for The Wall Street Journal in August 1999. She and colleague John R. Emshwiller shared responsibility for the unfolding Enron scandal in 2001, scoring many journalistic coups in the process. They later collaborated on a book on the subject called ''24 Days''. She joined the WSJ investigations team in 2018.

Honors and awards

In 1996 Smith shared a Gerald Loeb Award for distinguished financial and economics reporting, while at the San Jose Mercury News, for stories about big utility PG&E Corp. In 2001 she won a Gerald Loeb Award for beat writing at The Wall Street Journal for coverage of the California energy crisis. She shared a third Gerald Loeb Award with John Emshwiller in 2002 for stories in The Wall Street Journal about the unfolding Enron scandal. Earlier in her career, she received a California Award for Excellence in economic writing and in 1990, she won a John Hancock Award for distinguished financial writing while at the Oakland Tribune for stories about the savings and loan crisis. Smith shared another Gerald Loeb Award in 2020 and was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for her contributions to "How PG&E Burned California".

References

Sources

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24 Days
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24 Days press release
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Fleet Owner Magazine
Year of birth missing (living people) Living people The Wall Street Journal people Gerald Loeb Award winners for Deadline and Beat Reporting The Mercury News people {{US-journalist-20thC-stub