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Memo: Canadian Press names new Washington correspondent

Read the related story PANETTA NAMED NEW WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT I am very pleased to announce that Alex Panetta will be the new Washington correspondent for The Canadian Press. He is succeeding Lee-Anne Goodman, who will start her new position in the Ottawa bureau next week. Panetta has been our Montreal News Editor since 2009. Prior…

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PANETTA NAMED NEW WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT

I am very pleased to announce that Alex Panetta will be the new Washington correspondent for The Canadian Press. He is succeeding Lee-Anne Goodman, who will start her new position in the Ottawa bureau next week.

Panetta has been our Montreal News Editor since 2009. Prior to that, he was one of our top political reporters in the Ottawa bureau. During his six years in Ottawa and his current stint in Montreal, Panetta also covered a number of top international stories: he was one of CP’s war correspondents in Afghanistan; he was in Cyprus in 2006 for the evacuation of expatriates from Lebanon back to Canada; he went to Haiti in the aftermath of the horrendous 2010 earthquake. On all of these stories, Panetta established a reputation as a pre-eminent storyteller in print, audio and video. He is also able to work in many languages: besides English, French and Italian, Panetta is conversant in Spanish – an important attribute for any correspondent in the United States, where the growing Latino population is exerting increasing political, social and economic power.

The Washington correspondent is an extremely important position for The Canadian Press. As other news organizations have reduced their foreign bureaus, CP still believes a distinct Canadian voice is necessary to report on our most influential neighbour. No one else is focusing on the key bilateral issues between the two countries and Panetta’s experience as an investigative reporter will mine new stories that will keep CP ahead of other news organizations.

Panetta is currently enrolled in an online data-mining course. He has been a part-time journalism instructor at Concordia University and completed the Media Management Executive Program at the Rotman School of Management. Prior to joining the Ottawa bureau, he was the English service’s Quebec City correspondent.

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The competition for the Washington correspondent job was very tough. We had several strong internal candidates apply for the position and the search committee – Kevin Ward, James McCarten and me – were impressed by everyone who applied. We thank all of the candidates for the ideas they put forward on how to keep the Washington posting relevant to the Canadian audience we serve.

Please join me in congratulating Alex as he takes on this new responsibility.

Regards,

SCOTT WHITE

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF        

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Tamara Baluja is an award-winning journalist with CBC Vancouver and the 2018 Michener-Deacon fellow for journalism education. She was the associate editor for J-Source from 2013-2014.