Business journalist fought crooks and protectionism

By PAUL PANCKHURST

One of the country's best-known and most-awarded business journalists, Warren Berryman, 64, died in Auckland yesterday.

He was the editor of The Independent, the business weekly launched 11 years ago as a competitor to the National Business Review.

He was felled by cancer.

"The consummate nosy bastard," was a description of Berryman in a Metro magazine profile in 1986.

He was a former editor of the NBR, the newspaper where he got his first job in journalism, and also of The Examiner, a shortlived business weekly.

Berryman was a voice against protectionism before the Labour Government of 1984 opened up New Zealand's economy.

He chased crooks, mocked "wowsers", feuded with enemies and wallpapered his office with journalism awards.

The Metro profile described Berryman as "the ferret's ferret, the Ralph Nader of business journalism".

He grew up in Arizona and his curriculum vitae ranged from the US Navy to gun-running in Afghanistan to a Masters degree at the London School of Economics.

He was possibly the only fan of both Australian comedian Rodney Rude and political philosopher Michael Oakeshott.

The Independent, the weekly that he established with partner Jenni McManus, was smart, aggressive, obsessive and indefatigable. A sample headline gives the flavour: "Money-laundering parasites breed in swamp of bank secrecy".

It played a crucial role in the public airing of the "winebox" tax dodges in the 1990s.

Berryman is survived by McManus, two children - and one newspaper.

* A full obituary will be published on Saturday.