Buffalo Business First publisher Connors to retire

Jack Connors

Jack Connors, who helped launch Business First of Buffalo and has served as its publisher since 1986, plans to retire Jan. 31.

Matt Glynn of The Buffalo News reports, “Connors has spent 45 years in the news business. He worked at the Courier-Express from 1972 until it closed in 1982, and then at the Niagara Gazette starting that year. When Connors learned that American City Business Journals was going to start a weekly business newspaper in Buffalo in 1984, he interviewed for a job and was hired on the spot as editor. The first edition came out Oct. 29.

“In late 1986, he was promoted to president and publisher.

“Connors has led Business First, which is based in downtown Buffalo, during a time of dramatic change for the industry. The paper has shifted from producing only a weekly print edition that hit the streets each Friday, to an expanded digital presence. The paper, including the Buffalo Law Journal, has a staff of 30 people.”

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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.