Categories: OLD Media Moves

Florida biz columnist resigns to become mayor’s PR director

The business columnist at the Florida Times-Union in Jacksonville, Fla., has resigned to become the communications director of the mayor-elect of the city.

Abel Harding, a blogger and a former bank executive in the Jacksonville area, was named a business columnist for the Florida Times-Union in October 2009. He wrote weekly columns and a daily blog on business issues facing Northeast Florida.

Before entering journalism, Harding was a commercial lender at IronStone Bank, and an assistant vice president at AmSouth Bank and SouthTrust Bank.

Harding is a graduate of Southern Illinois University

The news was reported Thursday by Mike Marino of the Times-Union.

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.