Indiana biz editor steps down to part-time role

Ed Semmler

Ed Semmler, the business editor of the South Bend Tribune in Indiana since 1999, is stepping down into a part-time role at the newspaper.

Semmler writes, “I like to think I have some perspective on how far this region has come economically. After all, I’ve been the Tribune’s business editor since 1999.

“In that time, I’ve directed most of the newspaper’s coverage as we endured the dot-com bubble, the housing bubble and the Great Recession, not to mention the steady decline in manufacturing jobs that has challenged working towns throughout the Midwest.

“In the years leading up to the Great Recession, much of the positive news had to do with the expansion of retail on the north side of Mishawaka and to a lesser extent on the south side of South Bend. The RV industry in Elkhart County was chugging along.

“Then everything changed and politicians used the region — specifically Elkhart County — as an example of what was wrong with America. Crazy ideas for electric vehicles were embraced, and quickly failed, as political leaders became desperate to get the negative spotlight off the region.”

Read more here.

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.