Essex returning to Free Press to oversee biz coverage

Randy Essex

Randy Essex, the former business editor at the Detroit Free Press, is returning to the paper after a stint running a paper in Colorado.

Essex has been publisher and editor of the Post Independent in Glenwood Springs, Colorado.

His new job will be senior content director at the Free Press, where he will lead business coverage, including on Detroit’s resurgence, and auto news, helping develop a national transportation coverage plan for the USA Today Network.

Essex was also the deputy managing editor of business and civic affairs at the Free Press, where he worked for six years. After leaving the Free Press, he was the senior editor/news at the Cincinnati Enquirer for two years.

Essex had previously been assistant managing editor of the Des Moines Register, where his responsibilities included overseeing Iowa caucus coverage in 2000 and 2004, before joining the Free Press in 2006.

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.