Detroit News personal finance columnist O’Connor is leaving

Award-winning personal finance columnist Brian O’Connor is among about 20 journalists leaving the Detroit News amid buyouts and layoffs.

His last day is Dec. 23. O’Connor declined comment.

O’Connor has been writing a column since May 2005. His award-winning market commentary includes the observation that, if Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke were to spontaneously combust, “The stock market will undoubtedly go down, unless it goes up or stays the same.”

In addition to winning three humor-writing awards from the National Society of Newspaper columnists, he is a two-time Best in Business winner for his column, as well as an awarded finalist in the Scripps Howard National Journalism Awards and winner of the Christopher J. Welles Memorial Prize from Columbia University. “Anyone who can make business and the work place this funny is a winner,” one contest judge wrote. “This column is engaging and fun.”

He is a 1978 graduate of the Roeper School in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., and holds a bachelor’s degree in liberal arts from Sarah Lawrence College.

O’Connor earned a master’s of science in journalism at Columbia University, where he was a 2001 Knight-Bagehot Fellow in Economics and Business.

Before joining The News, O’Connor was the founding managing editor of Bankrate.com, the Web’s top personal finance site.