Tag Archives: Obituaries
Top business publications
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In its June 2006 issue, BtoB Media Business described the 25 
BtoB Media Business, published by Crain Communications, Inc., picked the “Media Business 100″ to reflect the events, people and publications that have shaped the industry. The “Media Business 100″ is comprised of the top 25 business publications, top 25 people and top 50 publishing milestones.
It commemorates the 100th anniversary of American Business Media (ABM), the industry association for business-to-business information providers. ABM’s more than 300 member companies reach an audience of more than 100 million people and represent nearly 5,000 print and online titles and 1,000 trade shows.
“The Media Business 100″ were compiled based on nominations by the BtoB Media Business editorial staff and freelance contributors.
Business journalist Levitt dies
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Theodore Levitt, the former Harvard Business Review editor who coined the term “globalization,” has died, according to an Associated Press story. He was 81.
Levitt, who had been battling prostate cancer, died at his home in Belmont last Wednesday, according to his son, Peter.
Levitt first earned fame in 1960, after publishing “Marketing Myopia,” a Harvard Business Review article in which he called marketing a “stepchild” in most corporations that concentrate too much on creating and selling products. He said certain companies and industries were declining because management defined the scope of their businesses too narrowly.
Since its initial publication, more than 850,000 reprints of the article have been sold, making it one of the most popular review articles ever, according to the review.
Levitt first used the term “globalization” in a 1983 Harvard Business Review article about the emergence of standardized, low-priced consumer products. He defined that globalization as the changes in social behaviors and technology which allowed companies to sell the same products around the world.
Read more here.
Rocky Mountain News biz reporter dies of heart attack
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John Accola, a business investigative reporter at the Rocky Mountain News, died Sunday of an apparent heart attack, according to business editor Rob Reuteman. He was 56.
Accola was a winner, with colleague Peggy Lowe, of a 2000 Best in Business award in the Spot Enterprise – Giant Newspapers category. He authored or co-authored a number of other stories and series nominated for SABEW awards.
Deb Goeken, managing editor of the News, called Accola “an extraordinary reporter. He has a gift for getting people to talk to him, and he has written amazing stories. He has been on the business staff for years, and John very much appreciated the team spirit and closeness of his business colleagues.”
Accola had just celebrated his 22nd anniversary with the News. In 1996, he won the Morton Margolin Prize for Distinguished Business Reporting, given by the University of Denver College of Business Administration.
More comments from Goeken can be found here.
A tribute to a labor reporter
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Former San Francisco Chronicle labor editor Dick Meister writes about former Los Angeles Times labor reporter Harry Bernstein, who died last month.
Meister wrote, “Harry’s well-earned reputation for fairness and his standing as a leading authority on labor relations were of immense help. That gave him clear access to the many union leaders and others who hesitated to provide reporters the information they needed, for fear it would not be treated fairly or knowledgeably.
“Sometimes, Harry’s reporting and analysis of the differences that separated labor and management actually helped them reach compromises that settled their disputes.
“For a journalist to earn the trust of two warring parties certainly is exceptional, but it is — or should be — the goal of any labor reporter.
“Harry, older than I, was a role model, actually an unacknowledged mentor, as he was to others. We sometimes argued heatedly, but he was a great help to me, even though as the San Francisco Chronicle’s labor reporter at the time, I was a competitor.
“Lacking Harry’s warm gregariousness, I had a hard time approaching some national news sources who I didn’t know and who didn’t know or trust me.”
Read more here.
Andrew Leckey remembers Rukeyser
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Tribune Media Services columnist Andrew Leckey, who is also the director of the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism at the American Press Institute, remembers how Louis Rukeyser helped him in his career in a column published Sunday. Rukeyser, the former host of “Wall Street Week,” died recently at the age of 73.
Leckey, who was invited by Rukeyser to attend one of his show’s tapings, writes, “I enjoyed the taping, but even better was humorous than those on air. Rukeyser’s private viewing of it afterward with his staff. His caustic asides about guests, panelists and himself were more
“Afterward, it was off to dinner in a fancy night spot where our table was soon surrounded by fans he invited to join us. As I attempted to take notes, he became the life of the party well into the night. He loved being Lou Rukeyser and talking about money with everyone.
“He did impart bits of advice to me about building a career in investment news, such as the most advantageous strategy for travel reimbursement on speaking tours throughout the country. ‘Wall Street Week’ was a one-day-a-week gig for him, and he spent the rest of his time traveling to speeches and turning out newsletters and books.”
Read more here.
Former Toronto Star biz columnist dies
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Jack McArthur, a former business editor and then long-time business columnist for the Toronto Star, died earlier this week. He was 79.
“McArthur’s standard response always began with a kind of howling, half-moan: ‘Aaaaagghh.’ That would be followed by something axiomatic, like this one about stock-market gains or losses that investors hadn’t actually realized by selling the stock in question: ‘It was only paper then and it’s only paper now.’
“‘God, how I loved him,’ recalls Diane Francis, who got her start in business journalism at the Star in the 1980s. ‘We were all kind of frightened of him, but his bark was worse than his bite. He was crusty, but boy, he knew lots.’”
“McArthur was likely the only person in the department who read every Bank of Canada Review from cover to cover, along with piles of Statistics Canada reports. But except for his weekly story on the stock market, numbers rarely made their way into his columns.”
Read more here.
Veteran LA Times labor reporter dies
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Harry Bernstein, a labor reporter for the Los Angeles Times whose hiring at the paper in the 1960s marked a change in how the paper covered labor issues, has died. He was 83.
An obituary in the Times on Thursday written by Jon Thurber noted, “Coming two years after Otis Chandler took the reins as publisher of The Times, the hiring of Bernstein to report about labor issues was considered remarkable. The paper’s antipathy toward organized labor was historic and deep. And in the 1960s, organized labor had much less impact in Southern California than it does today. But Chandler wanted more nuanced, balanced coverage of issues in The Times.
“Hiring Bernstein from the Los Angeles Examiner after the morning Hearst paper folded in 1962 was ‘very significant to the development of the paper,’ said Bill Boyarsky, a former city editor, political writer and columnist for The Times.
“‘He brought straightforward, honest labor reporting to the paper,’ Boyarsky said. ‘For the first time, labor’s point of view was consistently reflected in news stories. He reported the huge transformation of Los Angeles through the prism of labor and management issues.’
“In his book, ‘Privileged Son,’ about Chandler, Dennis McDougal noted that Bernstein’s early stories brought criticism from business leaders who were unaccustomed to seeing labor’s views reflected in The Times.”
Read more here.
Wall Street Week's Rukeyser has died
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Wall Street Week host Louis Rukeyser has died, according to a story in the Baltimore Sun. He was 73. Rukeyser had not appeared on the show, which is now off the air, since 2003.
Rukeyser’s journalism career began in the 1950s, and he spent more than a decade at the Baltimore Sun as a political and foreign correspondent. He left the newspaper for a job at ABC News, where he began covering business and economics stories in 1968, before Levine began his stint covering the same beat at NBC. Rukeyser had developed a number of economic specials for ABC, but found that network executives weren’t as interested in his coverage as other correspondents.
“The trouble with most television executives and producers is they think the economy is too dull and too complicated to do on TV,� Rukeyser said after he left the network. “And that happens to be nonsense.� Two years later, he began a show on the Public Broadcasting System called Wall Street Week. By 1973, the show had become so popular that Rukeyser left ABC to devote his full-time attention to it. The show became a fixture on PBS channels around the country.
Every Friday night, Wall Street Week was taped at Maryland Public Television, with Rukeyser and a group of investment professionals talking about the market, individual stocks, the economy and other business-related matters that concerned Wall Street. Rukeyser became known for his puns and his dry wit, and the show attracted millions of watchers. What was so interesting was how Rukeyser structured the show to cater to the average viewer.
“I think there is a hunger in the American public for clear, believable, understandable, usable pocketbook information,� he once said.
In 2002, when Maryland Public Television dropped Rukeyser for a similar show with Fortune magazine, he quickly moved his show to CNBC, where he remained for two years before retiring. The Fortune show was cancelled in 2005. Throughout the history of Rukeyser’s show, it was the most-watched business program on television. The quality of his business journalism was recognized when he received a Loeb Award, becoming the first broadcaster ever to receive the honor.
Read the obituary here.
Former Daily News biz editor, Bloomberg editor dies
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John Sims, who was a former business editor at the New York Daily News and an editor at Bloomberg News in London, has died. He was 65.
An obituary in the Daily News on Monday noted, “During his career at UPI, he worked in Brussels, Beirut, Vienna and other capitals before coming towork for the wire service in New York. He wrote on topics ranging from the Vietnam War peace talks to ballet and Broadway musicals.
“At the Daily News, where he worked from 1980-89, he held a variety of positions, including assistant business editor, business editor, national editor and deputy managing editor/Sunday editor. Also, he reported from Rome for The News after the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II and later oversaw major stories such as the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger.
“He worked from 1990 to 1993 as a writer for Money magazine and then became an editor in London for Bloomberg News, a job he held until his death.”
Read more here.
Biz editor remembers reporter Accola
by Adam Levy
Rocky Mountain News business editor Rob Reuteman wrote about reporter John Accola, who died this past weekend of a heart attack, in his Friday column.
Reuteman wrote, “As someone who runs a team of business journalists, one of the aspects I appreciated most about John was how he rubbed off on those around him. Rocky entertainment reporter Erika Gonzalez started her work here in the business section, seated next to him. ‘I soon realized that sitting next to John was the best thing that could happen to a young reporter,’ she wrote this week. ‘He was so diligent and so dedicated, you could learn something just from listening to John conduct a phone interview. He taught me the importance of exhaustive research and reporting.’
“Some of Accola’s phone interviews, easily overheard by those around him, are legendary. Deputy business editor Gil Rudawsky recalled listening to him on the phone with money manager Will Hoover, well before he was convicted and jailed for bilking clients. Rudawsky recalls hearing Accola say, ‘I’m reading through this report, and it looks like you’re a crook.’ Rudawsky expected an abrupt end to that interview, but an hour later Accola was still on the phone with Hoover, typing out a lengthy explanation of his innocence.
“Indeed, John had an incredible knack for saying something to someone that would completely disarm them. I remember a couple years ago when John and I were at a Christmas party at the home of our friends Mort and Edie Marks. Gov. Owens was there, too, and John and I went to engage him in conversation. John opened with, ‘Bill (not governor, as I would have begun), you look fantastic. Have you had work done?’ For a split second I could see the lack of decorum register in Owens’ eyes. Just as quickly, I saw that decorum shatter. Owens burst out laughing and chatted with us for a good 20 minutes.”
Read more here.