Ruth Hammond, a seasoned journalist with alternative newspaper experience, will join the AAN staff Dec. 1 in the position of editor. She recently moved to Washington, D.C. from Pittsburgh, where she had been assistant editor for Carnegie Mellon Magazine for the last four years.

Hammond has been a working journalist since the early 1970’s, when she returned home between semesters at the Univ. of Wisconsin at Madison to work as a summer-replacement reporter for the Kenosha News. Her career includes many years as an investigative reporter, both as a freelancer writing for the Washington Post, the Twin Cities Reader and other publications, and as a staff writer for five daily newspapers and Pittsburgh’s two alternative weeklies. She won national awards for series on welfare reform and injustice caused by poor court interpreting, and was widely recognized for her reporting on the Laotian Hmong community.

“Ruth is the only person I’ve ever hired twice,” says Pittsburgh City Paper Editor Andy Newman, who worked with Hammond at both City Paper and the now-defunct In Pittsburgh Newsweekly. “While that may not reflect well on her taste in editors, it does give a sense of her value to our papers.

“She’s a dogged reporter and an elegant writer and above all a good egg.”

Hammond will be responsible for all of the editorial functions on the association’s aan.org industry Web site, and also will be in charge of building and managing AAN’s new story-sharing Web site.

“Several excellent candidates applied for the position,” says Karpel. “But ultimately, Ruth’s experience and her ideas and enthusiasm for the new Web site convinced me that she was the right person for the job.”