Reporter Andrea Chang to cover retail beat

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The announcement to staff from Business Editor Sallie Hofmeister:

I am pleased to announce that Andrea Chang is taking on a new challenge in the Business section as the paper’s retailing reporter.

Andrea joined the paper in June 2007 as a summer intern and was hired soon after, in October, as a full-time Business reporter. She has distinguished herself as a general assignment reporter, showing an eye for detail in pursuing some of the biggest stories of the year, including the Hollywood writer’s strike, the wildfires, and the run on Pasadena’s Indymac bank. Her 126 bylines (an impressive 17 of them on A1) have included a range of stories -- on toy recalls, the janitor’s strike, the grounding of American Airlines planes, and, of course, her memorable chronicling of the rise and fall of Megabus.

A graduate of Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, Andrea previously interned at the Palo Alto Weekly, the St. Petersburg Times, the Portland Oregonian and the San Jose Mercury News. She won a 2005 Certificate of Achievement for local spot news for her work at the Merc. She speaks Mandarin, haunts poker parlors in her spare time (she’s going to Vegas twice in the next month) and is an avid Lakers fan (she scored $15 tickets to three finals games by finessing the Ticketmaster system). Her favorite extravagance: the five-star restaurant. She is making her way through a list of L.A.’s finest.

Andrea will be working with Pat ‘Mr. Downtown’ McMahon and will be on the hunt for the hottest trends, the up-and-coming faces and the biggest flameouts of the retailing world. Her promotion is effective immediately.