Mark Lacter, a Los Angeles business journalist, died after suffering a stroke Wednesday at age 59.
His wife, Laura Levine, told one of Lacter’s regular publications, LA Observed, that her husband could not survive the bleeding on his brain and passed at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center.
Lacter also regularly wrote for Los Angeles Magazine and filed weekly radio commentaries for KPCC-FM on “Morning Edition” with host Steve Julian.
Julian wrote the following tribute on Facebook: “[Lacter’s regular segments] were my favorite four minutes each week, without exception, and gave us reason to email back and forth on Mondays and Tuesdays; our friendship was reason to get together, but not nearly as often as we should have. Mark’s humor and knowledge contributed not only to our biz coverage, but also to our friendship lo these many years. Laura told me this morning of Mark’s stroke and I am devastated by his death.”
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Lacter began covering business, media and politics at LA Biz Observed in 2006, writing more than 10,000 posts, colleague Kevin Roderick wrote Thursday.
Lacter’s final posts published Tuesday, included critiques of the airlines and Justice Department, an update on the southern California housing market and Amazon.com’s Los Angeles delivery expedition attempts.
Before joining LA Observed, Lacter was the editor of the Los Angeles Business Journal. He worked previously at the Daily News, the Orange County Register, the San Francisco Chronicle and Forbes. He was immersed on a book on the airline industry when he died, Roderick wrote.
Journalists, businessmen, readers and politicians alike reacted to Lacter’s passing with sadness on whatever forums they had. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti posted to Twitter: “Very sad to learn of @LABizObserved Mark Lacter’s passing. I always enjoyed his intelligence and fearlessness. He will be missed.”
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Bloomberg News bureau chief Tony Palazzo expressed the following on Roderick’s Facebook page: “I worked with Mark at the L.A. Business Journal, and I still work with a number of his many alums. He was a tough boss but he made us better reporters and editors. Big loss for the journalistic community in L.A.”
Born Oct. 28, 1954, in Queens, N.Y., Lacter attended George Washington University, where he hosted a jazz radio program, his Los Angeles Times obituary read.
He and his wife, a murder mysteries writer, married in 1994.