Categories: OLD Media Moves

Who wrote the first “totally honest” markets story?

Wall Street Journal columnist Jason Zweig is trying to find out who wrote the following “article,” which appeared more than 20 years ago.

Zweig writes, “And, while it is steeped in the experience of the mid-1990s, when it must have been written, it would have gotten a laugh in 1929 and probably will still be funny 50 years from now.

“This version is from a photocopy in my files, which I made some 20 years ago from a reproduction of it in the monthly ‘Green Book’ of investment research published by the Leuthold Group.

“Does anybody out there know who is responsible for this little blast of brilliance? I would love to find, and credit, the original author(s).”

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.