Associate Professor of Journalism
Managing Editor, Columbia Missourian

Abbott has been in the newspaper business for four decades, including the past 10 years serving as managing editor of the Columbia Missourian where she works with committed faculty editors and talented students to practice journalism with the highest standards. After her first graduation from the Missouri School of Journalism, she began in Alaska as a reporter for the Pulitzer Prize-winning Anchorage Daily News, where she served 15 years as a metro reporter, opinion editor, features editor and columnist, covering issues such as Native land claims, the building of the Alaska pipeline and rural education developments. When she returned to Mizzou to earn a doctorate, she worked as a city editor and features editor for the Columbia Missourian. After earning her doctorate, she worked at the Sacramento Bee as a copy editor and designer for the features section, and then the Des Moines Register, where she became assistant managing editor for features. With the powerful emergence of the internet, the newsroom saw a slow decline in staff and circulation, and in 2007, she returned to the Journalism School as a Knight Fellow, working to help pioneer data-based stories at the Missourian.