John Huey’s role in business journalism history

John Huey, the head of Time Inc. who is expected to step down at the end of the year, played a great role in business journalism during his career.

Keach Hagey of The Wall Street Journal writes, “Mr. Huey, 64, began his career as a reporter, joining the Wall Street Journal in 1975. There he worked under Norman Pearlstine, who he would later inherit the editor-in-chief title from at Time Inc. Mr. Huey rose at the Journal to become the editor of Wall Street Journal Europe, and then joined Time Inc.’s Fortune magazine in 1988.

“In 1995, after Mr. Pearlstine had moved to the top Time Inc. editorial job, Mr. Huey was named managing editor of Fortune. It was there that he became famous as a turnaround artist, taking a magazine that Mr. Pearlstine once described as ‘in competition with the Harvard Business Review to see which one could be duller’ and turning it into an editorial and financial success.

“‘I think John is, of his generation, maybe best in class, particularly when it came to turning around a magazine like Fortune, which was a huge behemoth with a great brand name, but was struggling,’ said Andy Lack, the CEO of Bloomberg’s multimedia group and a longtime friend of Mr. Huey’s. ‘John Huey made Fortune about as good a business magazine as ever was.'”

“He rose to become editorial director of the company in 2001.”

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