Rebecca A. Smith was a reporter in the

San Francisco, California San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

, bureau of ''

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' (''WSJ''), also referred to simply as the ''Journal,'' is an American newspaper based in New York City. The newspaper provides extensive coverage of news, especially business and finance. It operates on a subscriptio ...

''.

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. It was founded in 1776 at the College of William & Mary in Virginia. Phi Beta Kappa aims to promote and advocate excellence in the liberal arts and sciences, ...

and magna cum laude, from the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW and informally U-Dub or U Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington, United States. Founded in 1861, the University of Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast of the Uni ...

. She later received her master's degree from

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

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'' 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'' was a daily newspaper published in Oakland, California, and a predecessor of the '' East Bay Times''. It was published by the Bay Area News Group (BANG), a subsidiary of MediaNews Group. Founded in 1874, the ''Tribune'' ...

'' 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 M. H. de Young, Michael H. ...

. 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 The Enron scandal was an accounting scandal sparked by American energy company Enron, Enron Corporation filing for bankruptcy after news of widespread internal fraud became public in October 2001, which led to the dissolution of its accounting ...

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. She died on December 15th, 2023 at the age of 68.

Honors and awards

In 1996 Smith shared a

Gerald Loeb Award The Gerald Loeb Awards, also referred to as the Gerald Loeb Awards for Distinguished Business and Financial Journalism, is a recognition of excellence in journalism, especially in the fields of business, finance and the economy. The award was e ...

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 The savings and loan crisis of the 1980s and 1990s (commonly dubbed the S&L crisis) was the failure of approximately a third of the savings and loan associations (S&Ls or thrifts) in the United States between 1986 and 1995. These thrifts were b ...

. 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