Tina Susman to National desk

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Following is the memo to staff from National Editor Roger Smith:

I’m delighted to announce that Tina Susman has joined the National staff in New York. For the past 2 1/2 years Tina has been reporting from The Times’ Baghdad bureau, where she built on her already impressive record as a foreign correspondent. Prior to joining The Times, Tina spent eight years at Newsday, serving as South Africa correspondent from 1998-2001 and as a national and international correspondent based in New York after that. She was AP’s West Africa correspondent from 1994-98 and South Africa correspondent and news editor from 1990-94. During that stint she was kidnapped while on assignment in Mogadishu by Somali gunmen and held captive for 20 days until being freed unharmed. She has covered the war in Iraq, as well as conflicts throughout Africa, and the end of apartheid in South Africa.

Tina was born in Orange and raised in Oakland, where she was co-editor of her high school paper with Mark Barabak. She is a graduate of San Diego State University.

Tina is ideally suited to take on all the great stories that originate in New York and the Northeast. She goes places others prefer to avoid, finds tales that would otherwise not be told, and tells them with a
verve that others can only envy.

Roger Smith
National editor