Categories: OLD Media Moves

The funniest business journalist today?

Tim Regan of Northern Virginia Magazine interviewed Fox Business Network reporter Rich Edson, who has won a number of stand-up comedy competitions.

Here is an excerpt:

TR: Does that sense of humor ever conflict with the kind of things that you as a journalist do?

RE: If you’re a street reporter, and you’re writing an article, and you try to be witty or fun … it’s sometimes a little more difficult to achieve if you’re doing print. In television, we do conversations. That’s what we’re trying to achieve on the air. … When appropriate, if there’s something funny or witty that you can come up with … there are openings for that. But there’s a real challenge, because … there’s a lot out there where it’s inappropriate. So it’s a matter of identifying.

TR: Have you ever been goofy at an inappropriate time?

RE: Not that I recall. … Whenever I’m not sure, I just play it straight.

TR: You co-won this event in, I believe, 2010, with a journalist from Military.com. How did that happen?

RE: They gave you a decibel score on the crowd reaction, and then there were three judges. And the judges voted two-to-one for him, I think, and I won the crowd reaction. … So I got the embarrassing photo op with the clown.

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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