A blast from the past

TALKING BIZ NEWS EXCLUSIVE

Talking Biz News is operating this week from Syracuse University, where it is perusing the papers of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster, a two-time Pulitzer winner.

We’ve run across a curious document in box eight — a clipping from the Charlotte Observer newspaper dated April 19, 1970.

The byline may be recognizable to those who know business journalism. It’s “Allan Sloan,” but he is described as an “Observer sports writer.” And he interviewed Royster about the state of business journalism.

Sloan writes, “During a brief interview, he summed up the business news coverage of most newspapers in one word: “lousy.”

“Royster said he felt that newspapers were victims of a tendency to create an artificial — and harmful — distinction between business news and other news.

“‘I don’t think of business as really being separate from other news,” Royster said.

“It’s part of the basic life of a community — there’s nothing that has more effect on a community than the business situation. These are bread-and-butter matters to every citizen.’

“According to Royster, papers as a rule make a great effort to cover disasters and politics, but fall down when it comes to covering business in their local communities.”

Sloan, of course, is now senior editor at large at Fortune and the winner of more Loeb Awards than any other business journalist. But at the time, he was a struggling sports reporter trying to make the switch to business news.