Tag Archives: Obituaries
Early CNBC commentator Shannon dies
by Chris Roush
Wayne Shannon, whose quirky “What’s It All Mean” commentaries were a staple in the early years of CNBC, was found dead at the age of 64.
Scott Cohn, a senior correspondent for CNBC.com, writes, “Schetzle says Wayne Shannon died in an apparent suicide. An autopsy found no signs of physical trauma, but the coroner is awaiting results from toxicology testing, according to the Associated Press.
“Shannon joined CNBC, then known as the Consumer News and Business Channel, as a commentator when the network launched in 1989. His wry essays, typically as many as three per day, continued until CNBC began focusing more heavily on financial news in the early 1990s.
“Before joining CNBC, Shannon held similar positions in Detroit, Philadelphia and San Francisco, where a local newspaper once referred to him as ‘The Will Rogers of Bay Area TV.’ Shannon was the recipient of six Emmy awards and four CableACE nominations, his son said.”
Read more here.
Iowa biz journal ME dies
by Chris Roush
Jim Pollock, the managing editor of the Des Moines Business Record, died Thursday due to complications from chemotherapy. He was 59.
Chris Conetzkey, the editor of the Business Record, writes, “Jim had been with the company since April 2004, serving first as managing editor and then as the Business Record’s editor until May 2011, when he returned to the role of managing editor. He began writing ‘Transitions,’ his weekly column, shortly after starting at the Business Record and continued delivering his witty, refreshing commentary about life and the business community until the very end.
“Jim was a graduate of Iowa State University, and dedicated 35 years of his life to journalism, working first as the sports editor of the Marshalltown Times-Republican, then as a Des Moines Register reporter for 20 years, and as an editor at Meredith Corp. for five years.
“Arrangements are being made at Hamilton’s Funeral Home in Altoona but are still pending.
“If the news comes as a shock, know it comes as a shock for us, too. Jim began what was supposed to be a short chemotherapy treatment just over three weeks ago for what doctors expected to be a very curable, non-life-threatening form of cancer.”
Read more here.
Former Post-Dispatch biz columnist, biz editor Kester dies at 96
by Chris Roush
William Kester, the former business editor and longtime business columnist at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, died Sunday at the age of 96.
Michael D. Sorkin of the Post-Dispatch writes, “At the time, the afternoon Post-Dispatch carried little business news. Mr. Kester was the first reporter assigned to cover local business and financial developments, and he wrote six columns a week.
“The paper noted its expanded business coverage with ads touting Mr. Kester’s hiring. He was later named business editor.
“‘He reminded me of the guy on ‘Dragnet’ — he was a facts guy, no fluff,’ recalled Harry Morley, the first president of the Regional Commerce and Growth Association in 1973. ‘He was very knowledgeable.’
“Because Mr. Kester knew business, he often found out things he wasn’t meant to.
“He had a network of sources and an ability to decipher regulatory filings. He broke stories about labor negotiations and businesses relocating to places with lower wages.
“Top executives at Anheuser-Busch Inc., including August Busch III, once filed into the newsroom to complain about Mr. Kester’s disclosures.
“‘But they never said that anything he wrote wasn’t true,’ recalled his wife, Carol Kester.”
Remembering Dave Morrow
by Chris Roush
Josh Dawsey, a senior at the University of South Carolina, was the inaugural recipient of the David Morrow Scholarship for Business Journalism, named after the former editor in chief of TheStreet.com. He received the award earlier this month at the Society of American Business Editors and Writers‘ annual conference in Indianapolis
Dawsey writes about Morrow, noting, “Dave Morrow had asked Donald Trump the serious financial questions and had one lingering query.
“Morrow — a former editor of TheStreet.com and an alumnus of the University of South Carolina — wanted to know if Trump’s famous matted hair was real. The real estate mogul said yes and jokingly prodded Morrow to test it himself, so Morrow grabbed a lock and dutifully noted the hair as genuine.
“Morrow’s encounter with Donald Trump was among dozens of anecdotes regaled by his former colleagues during the Society of Business Editors and Writers annual conference in Indianapolis March 15-18.
“Morrow was a renowned business journalist who died in 2010 after a bout with cancer. He was only 49 but had created an enviable resume, writing for Fortune Magazine and The New York Times, among others. Morrow served on SABEW’s board and counted many of the organization’s members as close friends.”
Read more here.
Former North Carolina biz editor dies
by Chris Roush
Tom Bost, the former business editor of The Sentinel in Winston-Salem, N.C., died recently at the age of 89.
Paul Garber of The Winston-Salem Journal writes, “Bost earned a journalism degree from UNC Chapel Hill in 1944. Before joining the Journal in 1953, he had been a reporter for the Greensboro Daily News and also worked at the Statesville Daily Record, where he was a part-owner until the newspaper was sold in 1979.
“In Winston-Salem, he started out as a reporter for the Journal, then switched to The Sentinel — an afternoon newspaper that closed in 1985 — where he worked as a reporter and editor.
“He was named business editor of The Sentinel in 1968 and held the position until September 1979, when he left to pursue freelance work.
“Jo Dawson, who worked on the copy desk for The Sentinel during Bost’s time there, described Bost as a hardworking, cheerful colleague who was devoted to newspapers.”
Read more here.
Remembering Matt Walcoff of Bloomberg News
by Chris Roush
Luisa D’Amato, a columnist at The Record in Kitchener, Ontario, writes about Bloomberg News reporter Matt Walcoff, who died unexpectedly earlier this month and had worked at the paper.
D’Amato writes, “Matt was in his late 30s, but he easily could have been 10 years younger or older. He was a brilliant journalist with a laser-sharp eye for detail who seemed to know everything. He fearlessly tussled with Jim Balsillie and Research In Motion. At the same time, he was kind and shy, somehow an easy target for verbal bullies. I felt deeply protective toward him.
“If the bullying happened in a work context, Matt pushed back. He went down to Caledonia in 2006 and took some pictures of the Six Nations protesters standing at the barricades. A few of them forced Matt to temporarily give up his camera, then deleted his pictures. Meanwhile, Ontario Provincial Police officers stood and watched the whole thing without moving a muscle.
“Matt was outraged, and struck back the way a writer does, by telling the world about it. ‘What is going on in Caledonia is not a noble struggle of members of an oppressed minority asserting their civil rights,’ he wrote. ‘This is not a 1960 sit-in at a Georgia Woolworth’s lunch counter. This is a gang of militant thugs victimizing the law-abiding citizens of Haldimand County, emboldened by the timidity of a province and country paralyzed by political correctness and the fear that one of the occupiers might get hurt.’
“I loved his quirks, like the way he went on and on about the time he lived in Prague and went crazy because he couldn’t find a box of Honey-Nut Cheerios anywhere in the entire city. Once he came to my house for a New Year’s Eve celebration and everyone started discussing the origins of the word ‘handicapped’ in much more detail than it deserved. (Understand that for word nerds like us, this was a great party game. And yes, we’re all a bit quirky.)”
Read more here.
Bloomberg reporter in Toronto dies
by Chris Roush
Bloomberg News editor in chief Matthew Winkler sent out the following to the staff on Wednesday:
It is with much sadness that we tell you of the passing yesterday of our friend and colleague Matt Walcoff. Matt joined Bloomberg in 2009 as a reporter in the Toronto bureau and truly exemplified the Bloomberg spirit. He was phenomenal at researching and using data, mastered the most complex Bloomberg tools, and had a genuine thirst for uncovering market trends or stock superlatives. In his reporting, company comments and data had to withstand his rigorous scrutiny. Who else but Matt knew that a tiny brokerage firm in Houston that was bought by a Canadian bank had Cooper Manning on the payroll — Brother of Eli and Peyton? That made the headline and the story sing. Matt’s dry wit and quirky sense of humor will be missed, as well as his relentless defense of the American bagel to his Canadian colleagues.
Before joining Bloomberg News in 2009, Walcoff reported on business for The Record in Kitchener, Ontario and the Tribune Chronicle in Warren, Ohio. He also worked as a full-time research assistant in the Political Science Department of Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario.
Walcoff holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Maryland and a master’s degree in political science from Laurier. His work has appeared in publications including the National Post, Toronto Star, Guardian, Baltimore Sun and Cleveland Plain Dealer.
Walcoff’s last story was a Canadian stock market story on Tuesday.
From financial futures to front-page features
by Chris Roush
John Bussey of The Wall Street Journal remembers how The Journal’s Jeff Zaslow, who died last week, made the transition from covering business news to other topics.
Bussey writes, “Hello, I’m here on behalf of Jeff’s many friends at the Wall Street Journal.
“I met Jeff on my first day with the Journal in the Chicago bureau in 1983. Jeff had started the previous week. I asked him: ‘So, what’s your beat?’
“Jeff paused for a moment and then said in a serious tone: ‘Financial Futures.’ Then he burst out laughing in that engaging and knowing laugh he had. He kept on laughing and soon I was kind of laughing too, and wondering: Why am I laughing? I have no idea what Financial Futures are.
“But that was the point: Neither did Jeff.
“In a colossal mismatch, the well-intentioned forces of the universe had taken our budding Michelangelo and, for the moment, assigned him to the equivalent of the paint department of an auto repair shop — in this instance to enlighten readers about forward currency contracts on the pound sterling and Malaysian ringgit. It was my first introduction to Jeff’s keen appreciation of life’s quirkiness, and the first round of what would be 29 years of laughing with my friend.
“It didn’t take long for Jeff to escape the finance beat and start writing beautiful page-one stories about overnight workers in office buildings and the isolated lives of Norwegian bachelor farmers. It would be a continuous trajectory upward from there: as a page-one writer for the Journal, a Sun-Times advice columnist, back to the Journal as an award-winning columnist writing about life’s transitions, and as an author of best-selling books.”
Read more here.
Columnist group names scholarship after WSJ’s Zaslow
by Chris Roush
Columnists, indeed journalists and all of America, lost a strong voice with the death on Feb. 10 of Jeffrey Zaslow, best-selling author and “Moving On” columnist of The Wall Street Journal. The National Society of Newspaper Columnists Education Foundation now honors Zaslow by naming its scholarship program after him.
The Jeff Zaslow College Columnist Award will continue to be presented annually. In fact, the 14th annual student column writing contest, in which its three grants are chosen, has a March 1 deadline. (Applications are available at http://www.columnists.com/?p=12632 .)
Zaslow, who died at 53 in an auto accident in Michigan, was a former board member of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists and addressed its annual conference nearly every year. He was an unflagging NSNC supporter and more than that, made time to encourage columnists, in person, by surprisingly speedy e-mail replies and, endearingly, personalized book inscriptions.
As NSNC President Ben Pollock noted, “Jeff Zaslow was my friend, through the National Society of Newspaper Columnists, itself a builder of friendships among columnists. More importantly, Jeff was a friend to the NSNC, an enthusiastic supporter of the society and its individual members.”
Information on donating to the Jeff Zaslow College Columnist Award can be found here.
