Albuquerque assistant biz editor Marks is retiring

Ellen Marks is retiring from a long career in journalism, stepping down from the Albuquerque Journal, where she is assistant business editor, after 33 years.

She will still be doing contract work for the Journal, though, because she can’t quite leave the news business behind.

She has been assistant business editor for the last four-and-a-half years.

Marks started her career in 1978 at the Nampa, Idaho, Free Press. She quickly moved to the Idaho Statesman in nearby Boise, and soon after found herself at the center of a legal battle involving confidential sources. It happened when she refused to name her sources for a story she did about a woman who had kidnapped her kids from her ex-husband because he was getting them involved in a cult.

As a result, Marks spent a day in jail, and the paper, owned by Gannett. paid a $500 daily civil fine that amounted to $36,000 by the time the kids were found and the case became moot.

Marks went on to work at UPI in Boise and Seattle before moving to the Albuquerque paper, where she is grateful to have weathered the devastating layoffs and closures that have torn through the industry during the last decade.