Categories: OLD Media Moves

Omaha daily loses two biz reporters, standalone biz section

The Omaha World-Herald cut two business reporters and the designer of its business section on Tuesday as part of widespread cuts across all Berkshire Hathaway newspapers.

In addition, the paper has cut its standalone business section to just two days, Saturday and Sunday. The Omaha business news section won a SABEW Best in Business Award in 2015 in the midsize newspaper group.

Before the layoffs, the World-Herald had a business news staff of nine, which is unusual for a paper its size.

The reporters who lost their jobs were:

Russell Hubbard covered finance and markets, the ethanol industry and transportation, including Omaha-based Union Pacific and Berkshire Hathaway-owned BNSF. Hubbard previously worked for The Birmingham News and for Bloomberg News.
Cole Epley covered utilities and energy and also banking. He is a native of Walnut, Iowa, and graduated from the University of Memphis in 2011. He previously wrote for the Memphis Business Journal.

The cuts to the standalone business news section begin next week.

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.