Denver Post business columnist Al Lewis was in his element today.
The headlines blared the news that more than 400 people had been arrested in a nationwide probe of mortgage fraud and that two former Bear Stearns managers had just been indicted on charges related to the collapse of subprime mortgage market.
In recent years, fraud and deceit in the U.S. marketplace have been the meat and potatoes of Lewis’ columns.
And his mastery of the subject, artfully displayed in his columns, has won him back-to-back awards from the Society of American Business Editors as the best business columnist in the nation.
For Lewis, those two accolades plus the keen eye of Rick Stine, “senior editor Americas” for the Dow Jones Newswires has won Lewis a job with Dow Jones as a national columnist.
Lewis’ last column at the Post will run July 1.
“I can be a national columnist now,” said Lewis as he relaxed on an outside porch of The Denver Post’s sixth-floor offices. “It’s my one shot. How can you turn that down?”
Lewis loves the human drama of the business world, and that drama has taken him more and more frequently into the courtroom.
In December, he wrote:
“The clock blares at 6 a.m. Sonny and Cher are singing ‘I’ve Got You Babe.’ I wake up, horrified, and realize it’s time to cover the insider-trading trial of Joe Nacchio again.
“I am stuck in a time loop, like Bill Murray in the 1993 film ‘Groundhog Day.’ ”
“I’ve been writing about Nacchio and the meltdown at Qwest for nearly seven years. Enron, WorldCom and Tyco are fading into the fog of history. But it looks like I may be writing about Qwest and Nacchio for years to come.”
Lewis chuckled as he noted that most U.S. kids get their first taste of business by playing Monopoly. There is, he said, the “Go to Jail” square and the “Get out of Jail” card.
“It never ends,” said Lewis. “The ‘Go to Jail’ square always gets a player.”
Lewis, in his new role as a national columnist, will probably spend a lot of time in courtrooms.
But he hopes his columns will appear in The Denver Post, a place he loves.
“I do want to stay in Denver. I love the people here. I love the readers here. I love The Denver Post. This paper has been the best experience of my life,” said Lewis.
Lewis’ departure from The Denver Post was announced Wednesday by Post business editor Steve McMillan.
“Dow Jones Newswires has created a new business columnist job and filled it with a guy who, in my opinion, is the best in the country at what he does — Al,” McMillan wrote in a e-mail to staffers. “The good news is that we’re working with Dow Jones to make sure we get exclusive rights to Al’s columns.”
Lewis said with a smile today that because of the tenor of his columns — stories about the Nacchios, the Will Hoovers and the Enrons of the world — he has been called a “commie” and a “socialist.”
“But I’m bullish on business,” he said. “I actually want there to be a free market.”
Lewis is tickled pink that Stine hired him.
When he became business editor of The Denver Post, Lewis hired himself to be a columnist. When he was told sometime later by new Post management that he had to choose between being business editor and a columnist, he fired himself as business editor and remained a columnist.
“I hired myself and fired myself,” said Lewis with a twinkle in his eye. “This is the first time I’ve been hired as a columnist by anyone other than myself.”
Howard Pankratz: 303-954-1939 or hpankratz@denverpost.com
