Pyatt, Washington Post local biz columnist, dies at 88

Rudolph Pyatt Jr.

Rudolph A. Pyatt Jr., a Washington Post local business columnist who retired in 2000 after 19 years writing a twice-weekly column, died earlier this month at 88.

Washington Post reporter Bart Barnes writes, “Mr. Pyatt was among an early corps of Black journalists that cracked the segregation barriers of Southern newspapers when he began his career in 1964 at his hometown publication, the Charleston (S.C.) News & Courier.

“He became a Washington correspondent in 1968 but soon left for work as a reporter at WETA, the Washington-area public TV station. He also spent a few years as director of public affairs for the D.C. public schools and as a consultant in the Washington mayor’s office before joining the Washington Star as a writer and editor. After the paper closed in 1981, he joined The Post and wrote his business column focused on economic development, taxes, commercial real estate and local government.

“In his farewell column, Mr. Pyatt wrote about changes he had witnessed in the Washington business world and the closing of mainstays such as Garfinckel’s and the Woodward & Lothrop department stores and Perpetual Federal Savings.”

Read more here.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.