Hicks, former NYTimes biz reporter, dies at 58

Jonathan Hicks, a former New York Times business news reporter, has died from cancer at the age of 58.

Daniel Slotnik of the Times writes, “Mr. Hicks, whose father, John H. Hicks, was the first black reporter at The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, joined The Times in 1985, assigned to the business news staff after stints at The Plain Dealer of Cleveland and The Arizona Daily Star. One of his first front-page articles, about black professionals leaving stable corporate jobs, ran on Nov. 29 that year.

“‘They say they are disenchanted with what they consider racial barriers blocking their success, or that they want to try their hand at operating a business, or both,’ Mr. Hicks wrote.

“He went on to cover the tire and steel industries as well as a bitter five-month strike by 12,600 employees of Caterpillar Inc., the world’s largest manufacturer of construction equipment. He moved to the metropolitan desk in 1992 to report on Mayor David N. Dinkins’s re-election campaign, an ultimately unsuccessful rematch against Rudolph W. Giuliani, a former United States attorney, writing front-page articles about each candidate’s attempts to woo black voters. Mr. Hicks later covered Mayor Giuliani’s crusade against crime and re-election campaign.”

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