Sharon Bernstein rejoins Business as an assignment editor

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Business Editor Sallie Hofmeister’s announcement to staff:

Sharon Bernstein, who joined the paper in 1989, is returning to Business after seven years as a reporter and editor for the California section. Sharon will be an assignment editor, overseeing real estate and regional economics coverage as well as The Sunday Business (Personal Finance and Real Estate) section, working in partnership with Web Deputy and real estate maven Annette Haddad.

Sharon began her career at the paper in 1989 as a television reporter for Calendar and moved to the Valley Edition in 1992, where she served as a reporter, assistant city editor and filled in as acting business editor for several months. Her stories led to new protections for women on Medi-Cal and for women during childbirth. She moved to Business to cover health care in 1996 and returned to Metro in 2001 as a senior general assignment reporter, tackling such topics as local politics, transportation, emergency preparedness, urban planning and public health. She served as the Sunday night editor there from 2006 through 2008.

Sharon has won numerous awards, among them the Greater Los Angeles Press Club award for Best Investigative Reporting for stories on the refusal by hospitals and doctors to provide anesthesia to poor women in childbirth unless they paid in cash. She was part of the team that won the Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Reporting for coverage of the 1997 North Hollywood Shootout.

Prior to The Times, Sharon was a reporter for the Herald Examiner, the Contra Costa Times and the San Francisco Examiner (when John Arthur was the Sunday editor). She began her career in broadcasting, at KSDK-TV (NBC) in St. Louis and KSTP radio and television (ABC) in St. Paul, Minn.

A Philadelphia native, Sharon has a bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Washington University in St. Louis and a Master’s in Journalism from U.C. Berkeley.

Business, already a hotbed of musical talent, will add to its strings section. Sharon placed second last year in the intermediate banjo-playing competition at the Topanga Banjo and Fiddle Contest. She lives in Studio City with a gaggle of children and her husband, writer Morris Newman.