Ellen Cannon graduated from the University of Delaware in 1976 with a B.A. in English. During her four years at UD, Cannon was involved with the Student Center Activity Committee and the independent student newspaper, The Review. In her senior year, she was elected to Omicron Delta Kappa, an honor society.
A career journalist, Cannon started at TV Guide. She went on to join the
start-up editorial teams at Entertainment Weekly and the Australian
edition of People magazine. She lived in Sydney, Australia, for 16 months and was fascinated with how media and libel law works in a different country.
As managing editor of Bloomberg L.P.'s
magazines, she helped create and launch several magazines and its line
of consumer and professional finance books. Cannon moved to the online
world as managing editor of Bankrate.com, then editorial
director of the personal finance websites of QuinStreet.
In 2007, the Society of Professional Journalists awarded her a Sigma Delta Chi award for her coverage of the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee meetings. Cannon is now a personal finance writer for NerdWallet.
Cannon serves on the board of directors of the UD Alumni Association and is an emeritus member of the College of Arts and Sciences' advisory
council. She is a mentor at the UD Career Advisory Network (UD CAN),
and she's also been a volunteer with the Volunteer Admissions Support
Team (VAST) for many years,
interviewing potential UD students in Florida.
Advice for students: "Take whatever job you can in journalism, as an intern or when you graduate. Any job, no matter what the beat, will teach you a lot and help you build clips. My first job was writing for a free weekly newspaper that was in grocery stores, banks and so on. I wrote the police blotter, covered town council meetings and wrote profiles of local people. It wasn't The New York Times, but I got to write bylined articles and built clips for my next job."
Connect with Cannon: On Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn