NYFWA to honor Kandel at Financial Follies

This year’s Financial Follies will honor Myron Kandel, founding financial editor of CNN and a legend in the field of financial journalism.

Kandel, who was cited by News Luminaries as one of the ten most influential business journalists of the 20^th century, will be recognized for his unwavering commitment to journalism integrity and more than six decades of dedication to the NYFWA’s mission to foster quality financial journalism.

Kandel will be awarded the “Citation of Appreciation for Distinguished Service to the NYFWA” at this year’s Financial Follies.

No one has received this citation from the NYFWA before. Kandel’s honor headlines an evening in which the NYFWA will announce the winners of several major awards, including the Elliott V. Bell Award and the Impact Award for Distinguished Financial Journalism.

Myron Kandel was the founding financial editor and economic commentator for CNN. He was part of CNN’s original launch team in 1980 and was a pioneer in the growth and development of financial news on television.

He started his career in journalism as a copy boy at The New York Times in 1951, working nights while completing his senior year at Brooklyn College and then while earning a master’s degree from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. Upon graduation, he was promoted to copy editor at The Times and later became a financial reporter.

Kandel next became business editor of Washington Star and then a foreign correspondent for the New York Herald Tribune, covering Germany and the European Common Market. He returned to the U.S. in 1964 to become the Trib’s financial editor, holding that post until the paper folded in 1966. He then became editor and president of the New York Law Journal and subsequently served as the founding editor and publisher of several newsletters, including The Wall Street Letter, the Corporate Shareholder and Review of the Financial Press.

From 1976 to 1982, Kandel co-authored the Greer/Kandel Report, a syndicated financial column that appeared in leading papers around the country. He was also financial editor of the New York Post from 1977 to 1979, before leaving to help launch CNN.

He is the author of “How to Cash In on the Coming Stock Market Boom,” published in January 1982. The book accurately forecast the biggest bull market in Wall Street history, which began that August. Kandel has received a Peabody Award for CNN’s coverage of the 1987 stock market crash and a magazine award from the University of Missouri School of Journalism. He has taught journalism at the City College of New York and Columbia University and lectures frequently in the U.S. and abroad.

Kandel has been the president of five journalism groups, including the New York Financial Writers’ Association, the Columbia Journalism Alumni Association, the Deadline Club chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists and the Society of Silurians.

He also served twice, 20 years apart, as president of the Society of American Business Editors and Writers.