2004 News: Business journalists honor TV pioneer

Society of American Business Editors and Writers
Contact: Carrie Paden, SABEW executive director, (573)882-8985

MARCH 31, 2004

COLUMBIA, Mo., April 1 /PRNewswire/ -- The Society of American Business Editors and Writers (SABEW) has selected Linda O'Bryon, executive editor of the Nightly Business Report, to receive its Distinguished Achievement Award at its annual conference in May.

O'Bryon joins such well-known business journalists as Allan Sloan of Newsweek, Barney Calame of The Wall Street Journal, Marshall Loeb of Money and Fortune magazines, Cheryl Hall of The Dallas Morning News and Myron Kandel of CNN in receiving the award from SABEW.

Nightly Business Report has been a staple carried by public broadcasting stations for 25 years. O'Bryon was serving as news director of Miami public television station WPBT in 1978 when several members of the station's board approached her to produce a television news program focusing on business.

"Business news on television was not a subject that was thought of," O'Bryon says. "It was not visual. It was not the type of subject that attracted a large audience -- but we felt it was important."

The timing of Nightly Business Report’s debut in January, 1979 could not have been better. In poll after poll, the economy kept coming up as the No. 1 issue as the public struggled to understand oil shocks, inflation and high interest rates. Wall Street Week with Louis Rukeyser was already on the air once a week, but it focused exclusively on investments and Wall Street. "We wanted to go beyond that," says O'Bryon, who holds a degree in journalism and a minor in economics from the University of Miami.

Nightly Business Report went national in 1981 and is now carried by 250 stations nationwide. It is produced by WPBT Miami and distributed by American Public Television. O'Bryon served as the co-anchor during the program’s first 12 years and continues to appear frequently on the air, doing interviews and special reports. She also fills in at the anchor desk when needed.

SABEW is a professional organization with more than 3,000 members based at the University of Missouri at Columbia. The organization is committed to setting and promoting the highest standards among business journalists. Its 41st Annual Conference is May 2-4 in Fort Worth, Texas.