Samuelson, multiple Loeb winner for commentary, dies at 79

Robert Samuelson

Robert J. Samuelson, who sought to explain the implications of unemployment, inflation and government spending to ordinary readers for more than 40 years as an economics columnist for The Washington Post and Newsweek, died Dec. 13, reports Matt Schudel of The Post.

Schudel writes, “Quiet and unassuming, with a bushy mustache and thick bifocals, Mr. Samuelson rarely attended Georgetown parties or appeared on television. Yet his views were known among leaders in business and at the highest levels of government, and brought him three Gerald Loeb Awards for financial journalism and four National Headliner Awards.

“Former Post publisher Donald Graham said that Paul Volcker, who later served as chairman of the Federal Reserve, once asked him about Mr. Samuelson. ‘I said he was a college contemporary,’ Graham recalled in an email, ‘and Volcker said ‘Really? He’s a young guy? I thought he was this crusty old guy who had seen everything.’’

“Richard M. Smith, a former editor in chief of Newsweek, told The Post that ‘Sam,’ as Mr. Samuelson was known to friends, ‘was in a class by himself: not just the best non-economist economist, but an analyst who saw connections that most of the experts missed.’

“Mr. Samuelson joined The Post in 1969, starting out as a business reporter. He later worked as a freelance writer before becoming a columnist for the National Journal, which was then a weekly magazine known for deep-dive probes of Congress and federal policymaking. He began contributing to The Post in 1977 and, afterward, to Newsweek, which was then owned by The Washington Post Co.”

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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.