Ex-Birmingham Biz Journal editor joins downtown district

Cindy Fisher Crawford

Cindy Crawford, who left the Birmingham Business Journal editor position in January, has been hired as director of communications and brand strategy at the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex and Uptown entertainment district.

Crawford will oversee public relations, social media and strategy for branding of the BJCC and the growing restaurant and retail area in a revitalizing area of downtown Birmingham.

“I served as a cheerleader for Birmingham while editor at the BBJ, and now I get to be an integral part of the team that will make major changes coming to the BJCC and entertainment district in the now-booming downtown Birmingham,” Crawford said. “It’s an exciting time to be a change-maker in Birmingham.”

Crawford was managing editor of the paper before becoming editor in 2010.

Before joining the Alabama business weekly in 2007, Fisher spent five years at the Daytona Beach News Journal in Florida as a reporter and 20 months at the Waterbury Republican-American in Connecticut as a reporter.

Fisher, a University of Alabama graduate, also worked at the Birmingham Post-Herald from 1998 to 2001.

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.