Anna Griffin to Lead Pacific Northwest Bureau

We are thrilled to announce that Anna Griffin will be our next Pacific Northwest bureau chief.

Anna brings a wealth of experience and a deep understanding of the region she has called home for more than two decades. Though a North Carolinian by birth, she fell in love with the Northwest after moving to Oregon 21 years ago for what she thought would be a brief stop.

Anna will bring her considerable talent and tireless news energy to the region that includes Washington, Oregon, Montana and Alaska. She will fill the very big shoes of Mike Baker, who has moved into an investigative role after five hugely successful years as our Seattle bureau chief.

Her journalism career began by calling in her high school volleyball scores to The Hartford Courant. She went on to spend 10 years as a reporter for The Charlotte Observer, where she covered everything from the political rise of John Edwards to the controversial arrival of the first female cadets at the Citadel. Scott Dodd, National's news director, says she remains "one of the best journalists" he's ever seen in action and a veteran when it comes to covering hurricanes, a major coverage line for National.

Just as important, Scott says Anna was a role model to her colleagues during their time together at The Observer. "When I took over her role covering real estate development in the region, she gave me great advice on beat coverage that I still share with reporters today."

After moving west, Anna spent 11 years as a reporter, columnist, and editor at The Oregonian, chronicling major regional stories, including political scandals, school shootings and the rise of homelessness on the West Coast. For the last decade, she has run the newsroom at Oregon Public Broadcasting, overseeing impactful coverage of wildfires, protests and political violence. Under her leadership, OPB's audio projects won a national Edward R. Murrow Award and were finalists for two National Magazine Awards and a Peabody Award.

Anna was a 2011-12 fellow at Harvard's Nieman Foundation for Journalism and this year was a fellow in the Sulzberger Executive Leadership Program at Columbia. She is thrilled to be returning to her reporting roots, and will work with Jonathan, who will edit coverage of that region.

Please join us in giving Anna a warm welcome.

-Nestor Ramos, Monica Davey and Jonathan Weisman