Lacter, LA business journalist, dies at 59

Mark Lacter, a longtime business journalist in Los Angeles, died Wednesday at the age of 59 following a stroke.

Jonathan Polakoff of the Los Angeles Business Journal writes, “Lacter was most recently a writer and editor at LA Observed, where he worked since 2006. He also wrote for Los Angeles magazine and contributed to business coverage on KPCC-FM (89.3).

“He was an editor at the Los Angeles Business Journal from 1996 until 2001 when he left to work at Forbes for a year. He returned to the Business Journal as an editor from 2001 through 2005. Lacter also was founding editor of the San Fernando Valley Business Journal, which launched in 1996 as an offshoot of the Los Angeles Business Journal

“He earlier was a senior editor in Los Angeles for Forbes magazine and an editor at the Los Angeles Daily News. He worked at Investor’s Business Daily and began his career at the Washington Post.

“Lacter suffered a stroke on Wednesday, his wife Laura Levine told LA Observed. He could not survive bleeding on his brain, the website said.”

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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.