Greenspan will be missed by biz journalists

Alan Greenspan, who has been chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank since 1987, will step down from his position next week and be replaced by Ben Bernanke. He will be missed by business and economics writers, noted Eric Heider in a story in Saturday’s St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Heider wrote: “Media savvy and a frequent guest of congressional committees, Greenspan maintained a high profile among non-economists. The fast-growing financial media of the 1990s covered him endlessly, said Andrew Leckey, director of the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism in Virginia.

“‘He hit it at exactly the right time, when there was a lot more opportunity for him to become a media star,’ said Leckey, who also writes a syndicated business column. ‘What was also different about Alan was that he was very much a political and media animal.’

“In addition, during his tenure, ‘I think we finally began to understand the importance of the Fed and interest rates,’ Leckey said.

“Thanks to the media, Greenspan’s chiding of overly bullish stock market investors in the 1990s for their ‘irrational exuberance’ has become legendary.”

Read the entire story here.