Outgoing SABEW president loses job

TALKING BIZ NEWS EXCLUSIVE

Bernie Kohn, the investigations editor of the Baltimore Sun who was the president of the Society of American Business Editors and Writers until earlier this week, lost his job Wednesday at the Sun as part of editor layoffs.

The Sun lost its standalone business section during the week last year. Kohn, who had been assistant managing editor for business until last year, said he plans to stay in the Washington/Baltimore area.

“I still live for the story as much as I did when I started in this business 27 years ago,” said Kohn.

Kohn oversaw the decision by SABEW to move its headquarters from the University of Missouri, where it had been for the past 25 years, to Arizona State University later this year. His tenure as SABEW president ended Monday.

Previously he was with The Washington Post as night business editor. Before that he spent three years as business editor at the Tampa Tribune. His Tampa staff received honors in the SABEW Best in Business contest each year.

Before moving to Tampa, Kohn was a business reporter at the Charlotte Observer and The Pittsburgh Press for 10 years, primarily covering the airline industry. He was also a night metro editor in Charlotte. He has won numerous regional and state business writing awards and was a Gerald Loeb Awards finalist in 1991 for a story showing how the owner of a former asbestos manufacturer had stripped the company’s assets before putting it into bankruptcy. The move left little or nothing for asbestos claimants.

Kohn is a graduate of Ball State University, where he was one of the original founders of an annual scholarship for students intending to go into print reporting.