San Jose biz columnist leaves for marketing firm

Mike Langberg, who spent 17 years at the San Jose Mercury News, most recently as the lead columnist for the paper’s business section where he focused on technology issues in Silicon Valley, is leaving the paper to join the TDA Group, a marketing agency

Langberg’s work earned him the Best in Business award for column writing from the Society of American Business Editors and Writers in 2005.

His previous work at the paper as the personal technology editor and columnist earned him the California Newspaper Publishers Association award for Best Business Story of the Year in 2002 for the series “What You Can Do About the Spam Flooding Your In-Box,” written with colleague Mary Anne Ostrom. At the Mercury News, he also wrote numerous lead stories about major technology companies.

Before he joined the San Jose Mercury News in early 1989, Langberg was a business reporter at the St. Paul Pioneer Press. Prior to this, he was a business reporter at the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel.

Langberg holds a Masters of Arts in journalism from the Communications Department at Stanford University and a Bachelor of Science in Journalism from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.

Read more here. In his column on Monday, Langberg wrote, “I’m acting on a long-deferred desire to work inside the tech industry, rather than write about it from the outside.

“I’m joining The TDA Group, a marketing communications agency in Los Altos that creates magazines, annual reports and other material for a wide range of tech companies.

“I’ve always been deeply grateful for the time you’ve taken to read my columns through the years. I particularly appreciate the many readers who have written or posted comments online, whether for me or against me.”