OLD Media Moves

Spinato of Fox Business remembered for his tenacity

Eric Spinato

Suzanne O’Halloran of Fox Business remembers Eric Spinato, the head booker and senior story editor for the Fox Business Network, who died last weekend from COVID-19.

O’Halloran writes, “FOX Business’s Neil Cavuto, with whom Eric worked with early at Fox, was wowed by his ‘tenacity.’

“‘To say Eric was a force of nature was an understatement. Everyone knows he was tenacious pursuing guests. What they might not know is he wouldn’t let anything get in the way of making sure they talked to Fox first. Even if they were in prison!!’

The anchor of ‘Cavuto Coast to Coast’ recalled the time ‘Eric managed to land former Tyco boss Dennis Kozlowski, not after he got out of jail, but while he was still doing time in jail.  Yet there we were in an upstate New York penitentiary talking to the man whose lavish spending had made him the face of executive excess, but at that moment, just another white-collar criminal serving time.’

“Now more than 13 years after that momentous interview, Cavuto said, ‘Looking back at it, I don’t know what impressed me more – talking to Dennis, the inmate, or seeing Eric so comfortable and familiar being ‘around’ inmates. He laughed. I laughed. Even Kozlowski laughed. That was Eric. In the moment. Always momentous.'”

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.

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