John Lawrence

NEW YORK (AP) - John Lawrence, a leading figure in business journalism at The Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times, where he created the newspaper's stand-alone business section, has died. He was 70.

Lawrence died Monday night at his New York City home of complications from lung cancer, his wife Kathleen Hale said. He did not smoke, she said.

In his two decades as an editor and columnist at the Times, Lawrence pushed for aggressive and accessible coverage of business, including placing business stories on the front page.

As chief of the Times' Washington bureau during the Watergate scandal, he refused to turn over tape recordings of a confidential interview conducted by reporters, and was jailed for a night.

A native of Cleveland, Lawrence earned his bachelor's degree from Oberlin College in 1956, and worked initially as a reporter for The Wall Street Journal in New York, Cleveland and Chicago. He later ran the Journal's West Coast edition.

Hired by the Times as financial editor in 1968, he was chief of the Washington bureau for three years before returning to Los Angeles in 1975 to run the business section. He separated the business section from the sports section, making the Times one of the first general-interest newspapers with a stand-alone business section.

Lawrence left journalism in 1989 to work as vice president for communications for the New York Stock Exchange and, later, Capital Group Companies.

In addition to Hale, he is survived by four children from a previous marriage and seven grandchildren.


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