Brick, covered Enron for NY Times, dies at 41

Michael Brick, a business journalist for TheStreet.com and the New York Times, died early Monday from colon cancer. He was 41.

Daniel Slotnick of The Times writes, “At his death Mr. Brick was a senior writer for The Houston Chronicle.

“Mr. Brick started on the business desk at The Times in 2001 and helped cover the utility giant Enron’s collapse in a financial scandal. In 2005, he was sent to Louisiana to report on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina; he returned to New York to cover crime and the courts. He also wrote feature articles, notably a ruminative, closely observed series in 2005 called ‘Summer at Ruby’s,’ about a dive bar in Coney Island.

“‘Inside, fluorescent lamps shine on the beer girl posters and the old-time photographs and the purblind man selling toilet paper by the ladies’ lavatory,’ he wrote in one article.

“Mr. Brick left The Times staff in 2008, but signed a yearlong contract to write about unconventional and sometimes dangerous sports nationwide in a Times column called Pushing the Limit, profiling athletes who did just that. He wrote of skateboarders, boulderers, wild hog hunters and rattlesnake wranglers, among others.”

Read more here. Brick was a Loeb Award finalist in 2015 for his coverage of the Texas energy industry.