Longtime Memphis biz journalist Risher is retiring

Wayne Risher

Daily Memphian business reporter Wayne Risher is retiring.

Tom Baily of the Daily Memphian writes, “He flew overseas in April 2003 to cover the handover from China to the Memphis Zoo of Le Le and Ya Ya, the giant pandas.

“Risher cannot recall ever asking editors for a specific beat. He never pursued a certain niche in the kinds of topics he covered.

“For him, he says, ‘it was just the idea of the process of talking to people, getting the information together, and then finding a way to write about it in a way you hope people will find interesting, or they will read it if they need to read it.'”

Read more here. Risher has been with the Daily Memphian since August 2018. He previously spent 37 years with the Memphis Commercial-Appeal.

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.