USA Today's excellent real estate writer to head AP division

Although many elitists deride USA Today as a dumbed-down "McPaper," that's not really the case anymore; plus with 3 million subscribers it's far and away the largest daily paper in the country. Over the last couple of years, I've noticed the excellent reporting (and writing skills) of Noelle Knox for the housing and mortgage beat, whom I think made a point to be both fair and balanced in her reporting on a very complex subject.

I'm certainly not the only one to take notice; in fact, the Associated Press (AP) has brought Ms. Knox on board to create and lead their new AP Business: Real Estate & Home division. From a BusinessWire release:

The real estate and home service, called AP Business: Real Estate & Home, is the first targeted news product from AP's newly created Financial and Business News division. The division is responsible for AP's financial news coverage and for developing new content products to satisfy the needs of print, digital, broadcast and commercial customers. As Real Estate Editor, Knox, who has 18 years of business reporting experience, will help launch the service in the first half of the year.

This is certainly important news to the 1,500 newspapers which collectively own the AP, as they'll all be able to tap news stories, video and other media from this new division (something which I think is greatly needed at many local newspapers due to ongoing stresses in the industry and constant staff layoffs). Even better -- she'll be objective!

The creation of a new real estate and home news service is part of the AP 2.0 corporate strategy focusing on financial news, entertainment and sports...AP's strategy is to become a leading provider of deep, expert coverage on targeted business topics.

As for the AP, just in case you didn't know its background:

Founded in 1846, AP today is the largest and most trusted source of independent news and information. On any given day, more than half the world's population sees news from AP.

AP operates as a not-for-profit cooperative with more than 4,000 employees working in more than 240 worldwide bureaus. AP is owned by its 1,500 U.S. daily newspaper members. They elect a board of directors that directs the cooperative...

AP has received 49 Pulitzer Prizes, more than any other news organization in the categories for which it can compete. It has 30 photo Pulitzers, the most of any news organization.