Former biz reporter gives $5 million to D.C. synagogues

You can make money in business journalism without being unscrupulous and buying stocks of companies in which you write about. The Washington Post is reporting that a 72-year-old former business reporter is giving $5 million to synagogues in the area. He says he accumulated the money by saving and investing.

Donald Saltz, 72, is donating the money to Adas Israel Congregation in memory of his late wife, Mozelle, who died last December, according to a story by Michelle Boorstein. They had been married for 40 years.

Boorstein wrote, “Saltz worked as a business reporter, editor and columnist at the Washington Star, Washington Daily News and the Baltimore Evening News — all papers no longer in publication. He joked today that he was like Joe Btfsplk, the character in the Lil Abner comic strip who brought bad luck.

“‘I’m like that character, who always had a cloud over his head,’ he said.

“He also created a trivia game that was published in various area newspapers for years, and is still published in the Buffalo News. He also still writes columns for his hometown newspaper in Crisfield, on topics including the importance of not eating too much and comic strips.”

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