Hobart Rowen; Wrote Column on Business

Washington —  Syndicated columnist Hobart Rowen, who wrote about business and the nation’s economic policy for five decades, died of cancer Thursday. He was 76

In a recent speech, rowen, who was based at the Washington Post, recalled the days when business reporting was “a true backwater of the news,” and said, “Today things have changed for the better.”

Rowen, a passionate advocate of free trade, emphasized that the united States was part of a global economy, and his columns pushed both financial reporters and government leaders to look at the larger picture.

Rowen graduated from City Collage of New York in 1938 and started his career as a copy boy for the New York Journal of Commerce. He became the paper’s Washington correspondent in 1941. During World War II, he served in the information division of the War Production Board.

He then worked as a correspondent of Newsweek magazine, where he wrote his first syndicated column, and served as the magazine’s Business Trends editor before joining the Post in 1966.

His column has been syndicated since 1975, when he returned to reporting as the Post’s chief economics correspondent.

Rowen won numerous awards for his column, including the first award for lifetime achievement in financial journalism presented by the Gerald R. Loeb Foundation and the Society of American Business Editors and Writers.

He also has served as commentator for public television’s “Nightly Business Report” and wrote many books and magazine articles.

Rowen wrote a book, published last year, Self-Inflicted Wounds: From LBJ’s Guns and Butter to Reagan’s Voodoo Economics,” that recounted his career and outlined his views on economic policy.