Jill Jorden Spitz named editor of the Arizona Daily Star

Jorden Spitz joined the Star in 1998 as a reporter and also has served as business editor, assistant managing editor and most recently as a senior editor.

Most of her time at the Star has been focused on watchdog and investigative reporting; projects she directed and edited have won 15 Lee Enterprises’ President’s Awards or other national honors.

She is active in state and national journalism organizations including Associated Press Media Editors and is past president and a longtime board member of both the Society of American Business Editors and Writers and the Arizona Press Club.

“Jill’s connection to the community and the institutional knowledge she’s developed over the years of being a leader in the newsroom is invaluable,” said Mark Henschen, the Star’s president and publisher.

Henschen said he looks forward to Jorden Spitz enhancing the Star’s commitment to strong enterprise and investigative reporting. He cited her leadership on “Beyond the Wall,” in which a team of journalists traveled the U.S.-Mexico border earlier this year. They talked with more than 100 people who live and work along the international line and determined that Donald Trump’s plan for a “great, great wall” is both redundant and impractical.

Henschen also said Jorden Spitz has worked to put the newsroom in an excellent position to succeed in an era when digital storytelling is increasingly important.

He noted her leadership in the development of #ThisIsTucson, a digital product that connects young moms with stuff to do in Tucson through a free app, website and on Facebook and Instagram. It was created after several months of research and conversations with 100 Tucson women.

A native Tucsonan, Jorden Spitz, 50, graduated from Canyon del Oro High School and the University of Arizona, where she earned bachelor’s degrees in journalism and economics.

She began her career as a reporter for the Reno Gazette-Journal and then moved to the Orlando Sentinel, where she wrote about Walt Disney World and Universal Studios.

Jorden Spitz is active in many Tucson groups, including Women at the Top, and serves on the board of the Tucson Chinese Cultural Center and the school board of the Tucson Chinese School.

She also volunteers for Nourish, a Tucson nonprofit that provides scholarships for feeding therapy for children who do not develop the muscles needed to suck, swallow, chew and eventually talk.

She and her husband, Tom Spitz, a commercial photographer, have a 9-year-old son.