We are thrilled to announce two high-power additions to the International desk: Jeanna Smialek as our new Brussels bureau chief and Jim Tankersley as our new Berlin bureau chief.
In their respective roles, Jeanna and Jim will be central to our Europe coverage, tackling some of the biggest issues in the region, including migration, extremism, climate change and geopolitics. Both consummate beat reporters, they bring a depth of policy and political knowledge, along with the ability to explain and entertain on even the most complicated topics.
Jeanna and Jim are notably inventive, as they work with colleagues across the newsroom to tell their stories on multiple platforms. Jim used a quiz to break down two presidents’ economic wins, while Jeanna explained how productivity affects the economy in this vertical video.
Jim joined The Times in 2017 to cover taxes and economic policy in the Washington bureau. He then moved to the White House team at the start of the Biden administration. He pieced together President Biden’s entire $3 trillion economic agenda, breaking it long ahead of when the White House wanted. He got his hands on the president’s entire first budget proposal a day before anyone else. He showed how Columbia Sportswear was sidestepping tariffs, and he led a team of reporters that showed how delivery giant FedEx wasn’t actually investing its tax-cut windfall as its C.E.O. promised.
“Jim is one of the smartest and most versatile reporters at The Times and someone who exemplifies the best in beat reporting,” said Deborah Solomon, who oversees economics coverage in Washington. “He is also an incredible colleague and true team player.”
Jim is the author of “The Riches of This Land: The Untold, True Story of America’s Middle Class.” He’s been living and reporting in D.C. for 17 years now, including for National Journal, The Washington Post and Vox.
Early next year, he will be moving to Berlin.
Jeanna has been The Times’s Federal Reserve correspondent in Washington since 2019, when she joined from Bloomberg. She has covered the Fed’s sweeping response to the global pandemic, the inflation that followed, the central bank’s response — and what it has all meant for consumption, the job market and corporate behavior. She also finds ways to make economic policy accessible to wider audiences, reporting on what a Congolese lobsterman in Maine can tell us about recent immigration, and on the economic challenges of 33-year-olds, America’s largest age group by year.
“At a time when the Federal Reserve was in the center of the economic story, Jeanna showed us all how it’s done. Her coverage of the Fed explained a secretive but massively important institution to readers and her analysis of the impact of the Fed’s actions was also invaluable,” said Ellen Pollock, Business editor.
Jeanna is the author of “Limitless: The Federal Reserve Takes on a New Age of Crisis,” and she is working on her second book, a retelling of the early years of modern economics — this time including the women who helped to found the field.
She will head to Brussels in the new year.
Please warmly welcome Jim and Jeanna to the team.
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