Al Lewis is a veteran journalist and, since July 2008, the author of the offbeat Al's Emporium column for Dow Jones Newswires, a service of Dow Jones & Co.
From 2001 to 2008, he was business columnist at The Denver Post.
Lewis frequently details the follies of big business and conventional thought regarding the market and the economy, usually through the people he interviews. He has said that he chronicles the human drama as it plays out in the business arena.
In addition to his column, he writes a blog called Tell It To Al, and frequently appears on Fox Business News and Denver’s NBC affiliate, KUSA-TV, 9News.
"As the name 'Emporium' suggests, Al will be writing on a wide range of business subjects through an unconventional perspective," Dow Jones said upon the column's introduction.
It is published on Dow Jones Newswires each Tuesday and Thursday at 9 a.m. Eastern time. It also runs on MarketWatch.com, The Denver Post and FoxBusiness.com. He also writes a column for The Sunday Wall Street Journal, which appears in about 70 newspapers nationwide.
Lewis, who grew up in Northbrook, Illinois, earned a bachelor's degree in journalism and political science from MacMurray College in Jacksonville, Illinois and a master's degree in public affairs reporting from the University of Illinois at Springfield.
He has worked as either a financial writer or editor since 1985, including stints at the Amarillo Globe-News, The Gazette (Colorado Springs) and the now-defunct Rocky Mountain News.
He has won several awards, including honors from the Associated Press, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Colorado Press Association and column-writing awards from the Society of American Business Editors and Writers for 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010. He also won the 1999 Morton Margolin Prize for Distinguished Business Reporting from the Daniels College of Business at the University of Denver. He has twice won the William R. Clabby Dow Jones Newswires Award for his work in 2008 and 2009.
“Lewis shows that business writing can be fun and interesting as well as informative,” a panel of SABEW judges wrote. “The writing is clever, witty and visual. He has the tempo and timing of a good comedian.”