Deutsch, longtime NY Times biz reporter, dies

Claudia Deutsch, a former business reporter at the New York Times, has died at the age of 74 from cancer.

Deutsch was a business reporter at the Times from 1984 until 2008. Preceding that, she had been the environmental editor and then management editor at Business Week.

She earned the 1974 Jesse Neal Award for her series of articles in Purchasing Magazine that focused on how corporate America was shafting minority suppliers. In 1976, while at Business Week, she received an award for her general coverage of recycling.

Deutsch began as reporter for the Syracuse Post Standard while a student at Cornell University, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in child psychology. She decided to become a business journalist because, she said, the business press did the best job covering racism, sexism, and environmental degradation. Since 2008, she had been a freelance writer and media trainer.

She was also president of the New York Financial Writers’ Association in 1998-1999.