Westfair Biz Journal lays off editor in chief

Westfair Communications, the Mount Kisco, New York-based publisher of the Westfair Business Journal, laid off three of its staffers last week.

Those losing their jobs were editor Phil Hall, marketing coordinator Carolyn Meaney and research coordinator Sebastian Flores.

Hall’s writing for Westfair Communications has earned multiple awards from the Connecticut Press Club and the Connecticut Society of Professional Journalists. He is a former United Nations-based reporter for Fairchild Broadcast News and the author of 11 books, including “100 Years of Wall Street Crooks,” published by Bicep Books.

The company has been experiencing financial difficulties following its aborted 2019 merger with Cantata Media, publisher of the Daily Voice news sites, and the COVID-19 pandemic, which saw the discontinuation of its longtime three print publications, the weekly Westchester County Business Journal and the Fairfield County Business Journal and the monthly WAG Magazine.

The two business journals were combined into a digital Westfair Business Journal, and the company maintains a website with daily news briefs.

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.