Cunniff, former AP business reporter, dies at 87

John Cunniff. Photo: Ted Boyle/AP

John Cunniff, a business writer for The Associated Press who for 35 years wrote a column that helped readers grasp a better understanding of the economy, has died at the age of 87.

Frank Eltman of the AP writes, “He wrote the Business Mirror column from 1966 until his retirement in December 2001, compiling nearly 5,600 columns and business analysis pieces. At the peak of the column, hundreds of newspapers carried Business Mirror, making it one of the nation’s most widely seen financial news features.

“‘John was a pioneer in the effort to make business news more accessible and a terrific colleague with great instincts and a compelling, easy-to-read writing style,’ said Randy Picht, who was AP’s business editor during the final years of Cunniff’s AP tenure. ‘He also was a colleague who never met a piece of paper he didn’t think would have some great use sometime down the road.’

“Jim Kennedy, AP’s senior vice president for strategy and business news editor from 1988 to 1995, said when he joined the business staff, he discovered ‘the breadth of our coverage … was predominantly the product of one man’s vision and steady work over decades. John Cunniff’s contributions to the early development of business journalism at AP were extraordinary.'”

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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.