Phoenix Biz Journal reporter leaving for economic development job

Eric Jay Toll

Eric Jay Toll, who covers economic development, banking and finance for the Phoenix Business Journal, is leaving the publication on Dec. 23.

Toll will become communications manager for the city of Phoenix Community and Economic Development Department on Jan. 3.

“It’s really hard to leave a job that is so loved,” said Toll on LinkedIn. “It was a blessing to work at the Journal.”

Toll has been with the paper since September 2014. Before that, he was a freelance travel journalist and a senior correspondent for the Arizona Builders Exchange.

He spent more than two decades in a variety of government positions, including planning director for Mariposa County from 2000 to 2004 and director of community development for the Town of Logan from 1994 to 2000. He was also deputy director of community development in Carson City, Nevada, from 1987 to 1989.

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.