Next week, Alexandra Sanders will finish up a top local journalism job and move to New York, and the New Haven Register will seek its fourth City Hall reporter in the last three years.
Sanders (pictured) received an ovation at Wednesday night’s meeting of the Board of Aldermen after board President Jorge Perez announced it was the last meeting she’ll cover.
Sanders is the third Register reporter to leave the position in the last two and a half years. She has covered City Hall for seven months. Her last day is Oct. 11.
Like her predecessors, Sanders is leaving journalism for a job as a spokeswoman. The 23-year-old is headed to New York City, where she’ll be working as communications coordinator for Manhattan homelessness non-profit Community Solutions.
She’s moving to Queens with her boyfriend, who will be working at the Register’s parent company’s new national news team venture in New York City — dubbed “Project Thunderdome.”
A UConn grad, Sanders started at the Register in June 2010, she said. Before she began covering City Hall and (until recently) the schools, Sanders covered Madison, Westbrook, and Branford for the Register.
“I’ve so enjoyed working at the New Haven Register. It’s really been an amazing learning experience,” she said.
Register City Editor Helen Bennett Harvey said she doesn’t know who will replace Sanders on the City Hall beat.
Sanders replaced Abbe Smith, who left the City Hall-schools beat in February for a job in Hartford as a Capitol press aide. She recently returned to New Haven to be a spokeswoman for the Board of Ed, where she succeeded former Register reporter Christopher Hoffman.
Smith had replaced former Register City Hall/schools reporter Elizabeth Benton as Register City Hall and schools reporter. Benton left the Register to join the DeStefano administration in April 2010 as an aldermanic liaison and later moved into the job of city spokesperson.