Retiring Knight-Bagehot director Thompson honored

Terri Thompson

Terri Thompson, the longtime director of the Knight-Bagehot business journalism program at Columbia University, was honored Wednesday at a surprise retirement party.

Thompson is retiring after 25 years of running the program, which has taught more than 200 mid-career business journalists.

Steve Coll, dean of the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, spoke at the event, as did longtime business journalist Myron Kandel. Those in attendance included Thompson’s former students, as well as business journalism heavyweights such as former BusinessWeek editor Steve Shepard and former Bloomberg News editor in chief Matthew Winkler.

“I was more than SURPRISED . . . I was SHOCKED!” wrote Thompson on LinkedIn. “Many thanks to Columbia J-School, members of the Knight-Bagehot Board of Advisors, friends and family for celebrating my retirement with me.”

Thompson was a Bagehot fellow during the 1980-81 academic year. She then worked for six years at BusinessWeek magazine and another five years at US News & World Report.

She is the author of “Biz Kids’ Guide to Success: Money-Making Ideas for Young Entrepreneurs” (Barron’s, 1992) and editor of “Writing About Business: The New Columbia Knight-Bagehot Guide to Economics and Business Journalism” (Columbia University Press, 2000).

A former president of the New York Financial Writers’ Association, Thompson is the recipient of numerous journalism awards, including the NYFWA’s Elliott V. Bell Award for making a significant, long-term contribution to the profession of financial journalism.

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.