Washington Post adds reporter who will focus on divide between rural and urban Americans

Jose DelReal

The Washington Post recently added five reporters, including one who will focus on the rural-urban divide, the Post reports. Jose DelReal, who spent the past year covering President-elect Donald Trump, will document the rural/urban divide on "how federal and local officials, businesses and cultural institutions are managing the challenges and opportunities of change." He will also cover the Department of Housing and Urban Development under Ben Carson and the Department of Agriculture under Sonny Perdue.

DelReal, 26, is from Anchorage, Alaska, Andrew Beaujon reports for the Washingtonian. "In high school, he edited Perfect World, the teen-focused section of the Anchorage Daily News [now the Alaska Dispatch News]. There, he says, he 'saw a lot of layoffs and the sort of slow decline of the newsroom.' The experience made him and his parents, who immigrated from central Mexico, nervous about a career in journalism, but after studying U.S. history and philosophy at Harvard University he took the plunge anyway," joining the Post in 2014.

"DelReal promises 'narrowly focused' stories about people that will help illustrate the themes he’s working toward understanding," Beaujon writes. "During the campaign, he liked to get away from rallies whenever possible and wander the aisles of Walmart, trying to find people who’d talk to him. Many told him to get lost, but enough told him about their lives–what they and their friends did for work, how their towns had changed in the past two decades. He wasn’t collecting quotes for stories, just listening."