A biz journalist who is humble, caring and a friend who now teaches

Amal Rockn of The Daily Titan at Cal State-Fullerton profiles former Bloomberg News journalist Joe Winski, who is teaching business journalism as a Reynolds Visiting professor at the university.

Rockn writes, “John McCorry, executive editor of the New York bureau for Bloomberg, worked with him from the mid-1990s until the end of his career in 2012.

“‘Joe was one of those great editors that could take a good story and make it great,’ McCorry said. ‘He could also take a poorly written story and make it well-written.’

“Kevin Miller, a news editor hired by Winski in 1996, was greatly influenced by him.

“Miller said people loved working with Winski and he edits work that people end up loving.

“‘I called it, ‘Winski dust,’ because he would sprinkle Winski dust on stories and they would come out way better than some of the reporters ever imagined when they were filing the copy in the first place,’ Miller said.

“Winski was not only a good editor and mentor who had a tremendous influence on Bloomberg News, but he was also a humble, caring and thoughtful friend to his colleagues.

“McCorry said he remembered after the birth of his first son, Winski not only sent him a congratulatory note, but also several children’s books.

“‘(Winski) was always calm under pressure, he never raised his voice and helped shelter his reporters from the chaos of management above him,’ said Noelle Knox, a former reporter who is now editor of the CFO Journal at the Wall Street Journal.”

Read more here.