Sarah Clifton
Sarah Clifton covers business for the Montgomery Advertiser, with a beat that links economic decisions, new ventures and policy shifts to their impact on jobs, institutions and daily life. Her reporting follows money, power and employment across sectors, from hospital finances and manufacturing plants to universities and state government. She moves between enterprise business stories and fast-moving news, keeping a consistent focus on how structural changes land on workers and communities.
Business and workforce coverage
Clifton’s core business reporting tracks the health of major employers and the consequences of their decisions for local workers. She covers hospital deals and ongoing financial struggles, documenting how agreements offer hope while leaving long-term challenges unresolved. In pieces on biotech and manufacturing, she reports facility closures in detail, including timelines, layoff counts and information drawn from state workforce filings. Her stories on these closures emphasize the scale of job losses and the official notices that accompany them, grounding coverage in specific dates and employee numbers.
Alongside large employers, she reports on the broader business environment, including the Montgomery Advertiser’s own relocation and the redevelopment plans for its former site.
That coverage connects real estate moves and downtown planning to the evolution of the local business landscape. Her beat also includes hospitality and retail businesses, such as the opening of Big Bad Breakfast and other food ventures, showing how new entrants shape the city’s commercial mix. The sensory-safe ice cream shop opening she covers sits within this pattern of tracking notable additions to the local market, especially where they offer a distinct concept.
Policy, courts and elections through a business lens
Clifton regularly reports on elections and state policy when they intersect with economic and institutional questions.
She covers statewide primary election results, amendments and candidate fields, explaining who wins and what changes are on the ballot. Her work on federal court decisions and redistricting highlights how legal rulings and proposed maps affect representation and, by extension, the communities and institutions her beat follows. In lawsuits involving the University of Alabama and student media, she reports on claims of censorship and governance, connecting campus conflicts to broader questions of power and accountability.
Her coverage of an execution after a court blocked a gas method shows the same attention to how legal processes play out in state operations.
Across these stories, she uses court actions, legislative sessions and protests as key frames, while still anchoring them in the institutions and people affected. The result is a business beat that extends into public policy and civil rights, treating legal and electoral developments as part of the environment in which organizations and workers operate.
Local development and openings
Clifton’s reporting on development focuses on how projects reshape commercial corridors and downtown spaces. In covering plans for the former Montgomery Advertiser property, she details future uses and the timeline of the masthead’s move, tying those changes to broader efforts to rework the urban core.
Her stories on restaurant openings, including Big Bad Breakfast, track key dates, locations and the business story behind new venues. She treats these openings as both lifestyle news and indicators of investment patterns, noting how new businesses join existing clusters and contribute to neighborhood identity.
The sensory-safe ice cream shop opening fits that approach, highlighting a business built around a specific experience rather than a generic product. Together, these pieces build a consistent view of how individual projects and storefronts participate in the wider development of the local economy.
Breaking news and broader reach
Beyond planned business coverage, Clifton takes on breaking news assignments that involve crashes, fatalities and other urgent events. Her work on serious traffic incidents reports key facts such as hospitalizations, airlifts and deaths, maintaining the straightforward tone used in her enterprise stories.
Even in these fast-moving situations, she keeps focus on the people involved and the official accounts from law enforcement and agencies.
Her reporting is carried beyond the Montgomery Advertiser through syndication and partnerships, with crash coverage appearing on Yahoo and a piece on an execution running on a Reuters platform. This distribution extends the reach of her stories on Alabama institutions and events while keeping her business beat visible in national news streams. Within the newsroom, she also contributes to coverage of journalism awards, underscoring her role in documenting both the community and the work of her colleagues.
4 more business journalists.
Aaron Karp
Aaron Karp is distinct for connecting airline networks, airport infrastructure, air cargo and policy. He is a senior editor at Air Transport World and has covered aviation since 1999. He has also worked as an editor for cargo-focused and daily aviation publications. His real beat is how airlines and airports respond to growth, regulation, trade conditions, sustainability pressures and technology changes. He covers route planning, network development, airport capacity, infrastructure, cargo flows, trade lanes, safety, air traffic control and future technology. He reports through news, features, opinion pieces, briefings and podcasts. He uses data, executive insight and industry conference reporting to explain market changes. His work links cargo metrics and trade policy to carrier strategy, and connects infrastructure and sustainability decisions to resilience, costs and long-term growth.
Adrienne Roberts
Adrienne Roberts is a business journalist at the Detroit Free Press who covers how policy, regulation and corporate decisions affect Michigan’s cannabis market, jobs, universities and health systems. She has a sustained focus on cannabis taxes, licensing, sales, product rules, consumer safety and local tax revenue. She also reports on unemployment, worker protections, corporate settlements, hiring, higher education, student safety, housing, data centers, health care access and economic forecasts. Roberts joined the Detroit Free Press in 2020 after covering automotive retail, dealers and labor issues for The Wall Street Journal. She explains complex business and regulatory changes with data, legal detail and on-the-ground voices. Her stories focus on practical effects for workers, students, consumers and communities, showing both the numbers and the people behind them.
Alex Bronzini-Vender
Alex Bronzini-Vender is a business reporter who focuses on how economic forces and corporate decisions shape specific communities and industries. He covers business for the Washington Monthly, writing reported pieces at the intersection of commerce and public life. His work reflects the magazine’s emphasis on linking markets and money to power, policy, and everyday experience. He treats business not as balance sheets and deals but as choices that affect local realities. In “Fear and Loathing in Palo Alto,” he uses a city tied to the tech sector to examine how a powerful industry influences a community. He grounds his business beat in on-the-ground consequences rather than treating corporate and financial developments in isolation.
Alex DeMarban
Alex DeMarban stands out for tracking major energy projects over time while showing how economic shifts affect local businesses. He reports for the Anchorage Daily News on business, oil and gas, and general assignments. His coverage focuses on Alaska LNG, long-haul energy projects, mining, ports, transportation infrastructure, and the everyday businesses that keep the state running. He examines financing, tax legislation, labor agreements, regulatory approvals, timelines and costs, and connects government and corporate decisions to workers, communities and consumers. He also reports on restaurant closures, grocery stores, breweries, meaderies, parking and trade disputes. His past coverage includes an open-pit mine near the proposed Ambler road, federal port grants and competitive elections. He reports through dollar figures, project details, public records, business owners and affected workers, showing how policy and resource development play out on the ground.