Email: elizabeth.janney@patch.com
Phone: 410.299.7618
Birthday: May 11

After graduating from the Writing Seminars program at Johns Hopkins University in 2006, Elizabeth answered the question everyone had been asking—"What are you going to do with a degree in that?"

Since she had interned for literary agencies around Washington, D.C., she knew she probably shouldn't sit around waiting for her short stories to get published. Instead, she jumped into grant writing and the freelance world.

Then, for three years before coming to Patch, she edited the local and health sections for the Erickson Tribune, a national newspaper for older adults. Having lived in Florida, where she won her first writing award at the tender age of 9 (shout-out to Cricket magazine!), she found covering seniors felt like home. Still, she loves telling stories of all kinds.

Her most devout reader is cat Gray Bear, who likes to watch articles as they are being written and handle interference from dog Majesty, whose contributions often read something like "zsldfjdsapf."

Your Beliefs
At Patch, we promise always to report the facts as objectively as possible and otherwise adhere to the principles of good journalism. However, we also acknowledge that true impartiality is impossible because human beings have beliefs. So in the spirit of simple honesty, our policy is to encourage our editors to reveal their beliefs to the extent they feel comfortable.

This disclosure is not a license for you to inject your beliefs into stories or to dictate coverage according to them. In fact, the intent is the opposite: we hope that the knowledge that your beliefs are on the record will cause you to be ever mindful to write, report and edit in a fair, balanced way. And if you ever see evidence that we failed in this mission, please let us know.

Politics
How would you describe your political beliefs? Issue-specific.

Religion
How religious would you consider yourself? Spiritual, not religious.

Local Hot-Button Issues
What do you think are the most important issues facing the community? Infrastructure, overcrowded schools, BRAC.

Where do you stand on each of these issues? I'm learning more every day so I haven't formed an opinion at this point. What I really want to know is what you think. Tell me at elizabeth.janney@patch.com!