Providence Journal biz editor is leaving paper

John Kostrzewa

Providence Journal business editor John Kostrzewa is leaving, GoLocalProv.com has learned.

At the Journal, Kostrzewa was assigned in 1991 to work with a team of reporters and editors set up to report on Rhode Island’s banking crisis after the collapse of a private insurer of 45 banks and credit unions.

The team’s coverage won the 1991 Sevellon Brown Award for public service reporting presented by the New England Associated Press News Executive Association. In 1992, the team won first place awards presented by NEAPNEA for general news and spot news coverage.

Kostrzewa’s special report, “Secrets of the Tower: The Betrayal of Marquette Credit Union” was a finalist for a 1993 Penney-Missouri Journalism Award.

From 1993 to 1996, Kostrzewa wrote and edited a weekly feature, called Small Business Making It Work, about issues affecting small and emerging companies.

He worked as deputy business editor for two years before being named business editor.

For the last 12 years, he has written a weekly column for the Sunday newspaper. The commentaries won an award in 2010 from the Society of American Business Writers and Editors, a professional organization.

Kostrzewa was promoted two years ago to assistant managing editor/business, commerce & consumer issues.

Read more here.

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.