Jon Talton, who writes a business column for the Seattle Times, writes about his time writing a business column for The Arizona Republic from 2000 to 2007 and how it ended due to his alienating real estate executives in the Phoenix area.
Talton writes, “Could I have found a way to stay?
“It’s a question I’ve pondered for years (I’ve been writing for the Seattle Times for more than a decade now, my longest tenure at any paper).
“It’s not as if I didn’t come to understand the peril of writing about Arizona as it was (and is). There’s a reason that E.J. Montini, known for his merciless takedowns, or Laurie Roberts, who writes regular outrage columns, never take on the real estate interests. But I did. Relentlessly. I did the same with the crazy reactionary politics that had taken over Arizona — I had grown up a Goldwater Republican, remember. ‘Real Estate Industrial Complex’ and ‘Kookocracy’ made me more enemies than I realized, no matter how many readers were delighted by the terms.
“And it’s not as if I was always ‘negative,’ as my traducers complained, whatever that word means. I was the first and most constant supporter of TGen, ASU, the downtown Convention Center, and light rail (I take special pride that WBIYB). I wrote honest but largely favorable profiles of people such as the late Paul Fannin — even a fair shake for Jon Kyl once I had a column on the op-ed page. I worked hard to stay on the good side of the LDS.
“I also knew that a drumbeat began soon after my arrival to have me silenced or fired.”
Read more here.
The Yale Program on Stakeholder Innovation and Management announced the appointment of Alan Murray, departing chief…
The Advocate is looking for a savvy reporter to cover the Baton Rouge business scene…
MLex, a LexisNexis company, is an independent news organization for breaking news and forward-looking analysis…
The Austin Business Journal seeks a staff writer to cover economic development in one of…
A Russian court on Saturday placed Sergei Mingazov, a journalist for the Russian edition of…
Justin Nielsen of Investor's Business Daily writes about the newspaper's 40th anniversary. Nielsen writes, "When the…