Pulitzer winner Pearlstein ends Washington Post column

Steven Pearlstein

Economics columnist Steven Pearlstein, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his 2008 columns that explained the financial crisis, is ending his column at The Washington Post.

Pearlstein writes, “In recent years, I’ve sometimes heard myself saying the same things to editors or readers who write in with a column suggestion. I find myself gravitating to the same topics, the same sources, even the same metaphors and sentence constructions. I’ve stubbornly declined to participate in social media, which for good or ill (mostly ill, I think) has now become an integral to the way journalists report what is happening, participate in the public conversation and let readers know what they’ve written.

“These days my journalistic metabolism is better suited to a weekly magazine than the 24-7 news cycle, while my natural instinct to avoid writing about topics everyone else is writing about ignores the demanding realities of digital publishing. And in a polarized political and media environment, I am a reliable champion for neither tribe. It’s time to hang it up.

“So this will be the last of my irregular columns for The Post. After 33 years, I’ve managed to outlast four executive editors, five managing editors and six business editors, and been lucky enough to work alongside hundreds of incredibly talented colleagues in a truly remarkable newsroom. I owe much to the countless economists, business and labor leaders, management consultants, politicians and public servants who have taken the time to tell me what they know and teach me about business and economics.”

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.