Longtime NYFWA member David Steinberg passed away on March 8, 2017 due to complications from surgery at the age of 85.
Below is Mr. Steinberg’s obituary.
David Steinberg, a prize-winning business writer for the New York Herald Tribune
retired chief executive of PR Newswire and chairman of Canada Newswire died on
March 8, 2017, due to complications from surgery. He was 85.
Mr. Steinberg devoted his life to writing and reporting news stories and was instrumental
in creating the global communications networks that disseminated them.
Born in 1932 in the Bronx, New York, he began his journalism career distributing New
York’s daily newspapers to his teachers in junior high school and later at DeWitt Clinton
High School. After school hours, he worked as a Wall Street messenger collecting
handwritten stock quotes for the New York He rald Tribune’s financial news statisticians.
While a freshman at City College of New York, he became a full-time copyboy at the
H erald Tribune and was appointed the paper’s college correspondent for CCNY.
Before graduating City in 1953, he was named a copy e ditor in the Trib’s business and
financial news department. He switched to writing in 1956 and his investigative articles
appeared in the New York and Paris newspapers. During his fifteen years on the Trib’s
editorial staff, Mr. Steinberg reported on developments in virtually every major industry.
In 1958 he won the first ever Loeb Newspaper Award for “distinguished business
reporting.” He traveled extensively to interview international business leaders and heads
of state for his weekly column, “World Tradewinds.”
Mr. Steinberg was the first American journalist Fidel Castro invited to see “La Habana
Nueva.” Eager for a positive review, Castro ordered casino croupiers to let Mr.
Steinberg win every hand. Upon his return to New York, Mr. Steinberg filed a
less-than-favorable report on the new regime. He was not invited back. In Helsinki, he
was given the key to the city for a series of articles on Finland’s growing economy and
efforts to improve trade relations with the United States. Two of these articles were
deemed valuable enough to US trade and investors to be read into the 1961 US
Congressional Record.
During New York’s 114-day citywide newspaper strike in 1963, Mr. Steinberg served as
business and financial news editor of the “Daily Report,” a temporary strike tabloid.
Later that year, Mr. Steinberg joined PR Newswire (PRN), which pioneered
simultaneous high-speed distribution of press releases to news media over leased
Teletype circuits. The major architect of the innovative international network, he served
as PR Newswire president and chief executive for 16 years until retirement in 1992 and
continued as vice chairman of PR Newswire and chairman of Canada Newswire until
2002.
In 1965, Mr. Steinberg secured recognition of PRN operations by the New York and
American stock exchanges and the Securities and Exchange Commission, allowing
transmission of corporate and financial news releases directly to Wall Street as a new
vehicle of disclosure in full compliance with “timely disclosure” regulations. Under his
direction, PRN became a state-of-the art digital communications network, acquired
several local “pr wires,” and evolved into an international service with some 700
employees transmitting hundreds of time-critical and market-sensitive news releases
daily to hundreds of news media and the financial community.
Today, PR Newswire is a global operation owned by Cision, a worldwide media
company that also owns Gorkana, PRWeb, Help a Reporter Out (HARO) and iContact.
Headquartered in Chicago, Cision serves over 100,000 customers in 170 countries and
40 languages.
Mr. Steinberg was a former governor of the New York Financial Writers Association,
president of the World Trade Writers Association, a member of the Deadline Chapter of
Sigma Delta Chi, the Professional Journalism Society, and the Silurians, a New York
group of veteran news editors and reporters.
A devoted husband, father, brother, and uncle, David Steinberg is survived by his wife
of 65 years, Anne, his sons, Howard and Michael, his sister, Abby Schroeder, his niece,
Rachel Schroeder, her husband, Danny Camiel, and other niece and nephews.
Memorial contributions can be made to CancerCare ( www.cancercare.org ) or the Simon
Wiesenthal Center ( www.wiesenthal.com ).
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