"Tough and Compassionate" Newspaper Editor Elizabeth Neff '96 Profiled

July 25, 2007

July 25, 2007, Greencastle, Ind. - "I like to see all the pieces come together into a package," says Elizabeth C. Neff, weekend editor and assistant business editor for the Salt Lake Tribune. "I like to work with reporters and help them," adds the 1996 DePauw University graduate.

Neff is profiled in her newspaper's reader advocate column. "A graduate of DePauw University in communications, Neff started her professional career working for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel at the Waukesha bureau," writes Connie Coyne. "Her first assignment was to cover a bad accident in which a semitrailer drifted off the road and flattened two surveyors. 'It was very disturbing,' Neff recalls. She had to interview the surveyors' widows. But that job had a lighter side, too: One time she did a story on a farmer who planted heads of lettuce in interesting patterns -- including the names of friends and neighbors. That job taught her to find a story anywhere."

Neff's experiences at the now-defunct Chicago News Bureau, Chicago Daily Law Bulletin and Chicago Tribune are also noted in the article, which made her "tough and compassionate -- two important skills for a newspaper person." Neff has been at the Salt Lake City paper since 2001.