Terri Thompson, the longtime director of the Knight-Bagehot business journalism program at Columbia University, was honored Wednesday at a surprise retirement party.
Thompson is retiring after 25 years of running the program, which has taught more than 200 mid-career business journalists.
Steve Coll, dean of the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, spoke at the event, as did longtime business journalist Myron Kandel. Those in attendance included Thompson’s former students, as well as business journalism heavyweights such as former BusinessWeek editor Steve Shepard and former Bloomberg News editor in chief Matthew Winkler.
“I was more than SURPRISED . . . I was SHOCKED!” wrote Thompson on LinkedIn. “Many thanks to Columbia J-School, members of the Knight-Bagehot Board of Advisors, friends and family for celebrating my retirement with me.”
Thompson was a Bagehot fellow during the 1980-81 academic year. She then worked for six years at BusinessWeek magazine and another five years at US News & World Report.
She is the author of “Biz Kids’ Guide to Success: Money-Making Ideas for Young Entrepreneurs” (Barron’s, 1992) and editor of “Writing About Business: The New Columbia Knight-Bagehot Guide to Economics and Business Journalism” (Columbia University Press, 2000).
A former president of the New York Financial Writers’ Association, Thompson is the recipient of numerous journalism awards, including the NYFWA’s Elliott V. Bell Award for making a significant, long-term contribution to the profession of financial journalism.
