NYT's Labaton leaving paper

Michael Calderone of Politico reports that New York Times senior correspondent Stephen Labaton, who has covered business-related stories from its Washington bureau, is leaving the paper via buyout.

Calderone writes, “‘I just thought it was, for me personally, a good time to consider doing something else,’ Labaton told POLITICO by phone. Labaton, who came to the paper straight from law school in 1986, said he doesn’t expect to work in journalism next.

“Most recently, Labaton has been a senior writer at the paper covering the financial crisis, and in his 23 years at the Times, has written extensively on regulatory and telecommunications issues.”

Read more here. Labaton graduated from Tufts University and received a master’s degree in philosophy and a law degree from Duke University. His recent coverage has focused on moves by the federal government to impose stricter regulations on Wall Street and banking.

Labaton has written extensively about the impact on worker and consumer safety of the Bush administration’s sweeping deregulation of industry. He won the 2003 Gerald Loeb Award for Distinguished Business and Financial Journalism for his coverage of the Securities and Exchange Commission, which prompted chairman Harvey Pitt’s resignation.

In 2003, he was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize in national reporting as part of a team of Times business reporters.