Barron’s founder on turning conversations to investing

Clarence Barron

Kenneth Pringle of Barron’s writes about its founder, Clarence Barron, on the publication’s 100th anniversary.

Pringle writes, “He was a complicated man in fast-changing times. Born in Boston in 1855, Clarence Walker Barron won awards for school essays and wrote for newspapers as a teen. He was the Boston Evening Transcript’s financial editor when, in 1887, he founded the Boston News Bureau, sending financial news by messenger for a dollar a day.

“After a year managing The Wall Street Journal, Barron bought Dow Jones in 1902 for $130,000 (about $4 million today). On his watch, the Journal’s circulation grew from 7,000 to more than 40,000; Barron’s reached 30,000 by 1927.

“Barron grew wealthy, with a prime residence on Beacon Street and a summer home in Cohasset, Mass., that sold for $27 million in 2010. He moved in the same social circles as the rich and powerful he covered, and conversations inevitably turned to investing.”

Read more here.

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.