What a business journalist reads in the paper

According to Karen Mathis, the senior business writer at the Florida Times-Union, the daily newspaper in Jacksonville, she reads the sports section in addition to the business section. Mathis was profiled in the Jacksonville Daily Record, the financial newspaper in town. Of note was the fact that her husband is a judge in Jacksonville, and she has raised two teenage boys.

Over the years, Mathis held the positions of assistant business editor and business editor for the Jacksonville Journal — Times-Union’s afternoon paper that is no longer in print. Since the early 1990s, she has been writing three columns a week for the business section as well as spending time on “Good Morning Jacksonville� and on WJCT’s Week in Review.

Writer Caroline Gabsewics wrote of Mathis: “Of course she has a special interest in the business section, but Mathis now find herself reading the sports section, too.

“‘I always read the high school sports section,’ said Mathis. ‘I even recognize the names in the paper because I coached many of them when they were 5 years old.’

“Mathis met her husband in Jacksonville while working on a retail bankruptcy article. She said he was a prosecutor before becoming Circuit Court Judge.

“It has been a fascinating time to watch him move from the prosecuting office to a judge,’ she said. ‘Now that he is on the bench, we don’t really discuss a lot of work at home. We keep that separate.’

“Mathis has only seen Judge Mathis in court twice and wishes she could see him on the job more often.”

Read the profile here.