Peter Lewis leaves Fortune

Senior editor Peter Lewis, who has been covering technology for Fortune for the past six year, has left the publication as part of the parent company Time Inc.’s layoffs, magazine spokeswoman Susan Brown Williams confirmed.

It initially was unclear as to whether Lewis was part of the downsizing announced last week at Time Inc. I e-mailed Lewis Tuesday night for a response, but got back this automated reply: “I’m no longer with Fortune. Effective immediately, your new personal technology contact at Fortune is: Oliver H. Ryan.”

On Wednesday, however, I was able to get in touch with him. He said, “I was among the layoffs at Time Inc. last week. I’m not sure what Career 2.0 will bring; perhaps a novel, perhaps teaching, or perhaps back into newspapering. Interesting times for the publishing biz, no?”

Earlier this month, Lewis was covering Apple’s announcement of the iPhone.

Lewis joined Fortune as a senior editor and columnist in September 2000, and was responsible for the magazine’s personal technology coverage. He was also the author of the Fortune.com column, “Peter Lewis on Technology.”

“Peter Lewis on Technology,” appeared several times a week and sometimes daily if news warranted. The column was a blog style look at technology products, gadgets, and news and provides follow-up information on computer and software reviews that appear in Lewis’ “Personal Technology” section in the magazine. The column also included reports on interesting items seen at trade shows, answers to general-interest technology questions and pointers to noteworthy technology related news stories, with commentary.

Lewis came from The New York Times, where he was a senior writer. Lewis joined the Times in 1982 and held a variety of jobs there, including assistant science editor, assistant financial editor, deputy travel editor, and second-baseman on the softball team. From 1984 to 1996 he wrote the Times’s personal computing column. In 1993 he became the first reporter for a major newspaper to cover the emerging Internet full time.

Lewis left the Times in 1996 to help launch an Internet start-up company, ideaMarket, which Fortune named one of the “cool companies” of 1997 — an honor that came just before the company collapsed. Lewis returned to the Times as a columnist and reporter. Before joining the Times, he was co-founder and editor of The Daily Planet, an alternative newspaper in Des Moines, Iowa, editor of the Des Moines Register’s farm and business section, and photographer for the Osawatomie (Kansas) Graphic-News.

Born in Topeka, Kans., Lewis attended the University of Kansas and is a 1982 graduate of Drake University.