MacPherson joined the Post-Gazette's Washington Bureau last fall, after working 13 years at Scripps Howard as the Washington correspondent for The Albuquerque (N.M.) Tribune. Prior to that, she worked for Thomson Newspapers in its Washington bureau and for UPI in Richmond, Va. In the Post-Gazette's Washington Bureau, MacPherson covers a range of subjects, from child care to gun rights to farmers. MacPherson graduated summa cum laude with a B.A. degree from Trinity College in Washington, D.C.in 1976. For the 1976-77 school year, she was a Thomas J. Watson fellow in Paris, France, where she studied the relationship between the French press and the French government by working as an intern at Agence France-Presse. MacPherson received an M.S. from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1978. MacPherson is married to Peter Hardin, the Washington correspondent for The Richmond Times-Dispatch. They have two children, Sally, 8, and Timmy, 5.