Biz journalists remember John Higgins

A number of well-known business journalists have paid tribute to Broadcasting & Cable business editor John Higgins, who died Nov. 20 of a heart attack at age 45, with comments about his skills as a reporter — and a human being.

They are posted on the publication’s web site here, but the ones that I liked best are below:

Newsweek Wall Street editor Allan Sloan: “John and I met in the early 1990s, when—in typical Higgins fashion—he called me up to tell me something involving myself that I hadn’t known. You don’t get too many calls like that, and I wanted to meet the guy who’d made it. We became friends and somehow fell into the tradition of having lunch together at a French restaurant on July 14 to celebrate Bastille Day. I’m into that holiday because my wife is part French, and we celebrate it at home. John was into it because he knew so much about so many random things—and it involved eating and drinking.

“In my religion, there’s a tradition that you call anyone from whom you’ve learned something “rabbi.â€? So farewell, Rabbi Higgins. Give the seraphim and cherubim hell until they let you see the Big Guy, so you can make Him tell you what He’s been up to. And you can scoop the world again.”

Richard Siklos, New York Times: “I first met John when I was a young reporter in Canada in the 1980s, and looked him up when I moved to New York a few years later. I remember having a drink with him around the time of both our weddings, and behind his tough exterior, it was clear he considered himself lucky in love and much else.

“John was a knowing, intelligent and competitive journalist. Perhaps best of all, he always got the joke. He could even loosen up the stiffest of corporate rituals, the quarterly earnings call; with one of his irreverent, perfect zingers, he’d let the media chieftains on the line know that he was not in any sort of thrall to be speaking with them.”

Variety’s Michael Learmonth: “Three things Higgins taught me: Don’t walk, RUN, if you need to talk to Bob Iger. Never exit an elevator before a woman. And you can be both incredibly competitive and incredibly generous at the same time.

“Variety and B&C share the same New York headquarters, and I walked past that lively mess of paper, DVDs and all manner of recording devices stacked up on his desk today. Twice. It looked as if he might just be out for coffee.”