A Few Words About Ben White

His distinct, insightful, and charming voice on matters of finance and politics (and whatever else popped into his head) will be missed by many

There are no doubt hundreds of people who knew Ben White longer, dozens who knew him better, and a score who knew him more deeply than I did. But in the eight – I was going to say “short,” but they were quite long – months we worked together at The Messenger, Ben and I forged a bond at the intersections of political/financial coverage and somewhat tumultuous lives in what an eminent former editor-in-chief of mine used to call “your chosen profession.”

Nominally, I was Ben’s boss. But Ben, The Messenger’s Chief Wall Street Correspondent, didn’t just have his own drummer; he had his own marching band.

Just over a year ago, we met for an interview lunch at Osteria del Bianco on E49th Street near Saks and next door to the WeWork space that housed the nascent Messenger staff for a few months before we moved to our cavernous but beautiful digs on lower Broadway.

Ben was late, and Messenger Editor-in-Chief Dan Wakeford and I cooled our heels at the entrance as we waited for him. As EICs go, none I have worked with – and there have been a bunch – are as unflappable. It was a warm and gorgeous day, and when a perspiring Ben finally arrived, Dan brushed off the delay, and we had a lovely lunch in the back of the restaurant.

(Later, Ben would tell me that when he got back to where he had parked, his car had been towed from a “No Standing” zone and he had to schlepp out to the Navy Yard in Brooklyn to retrieve it. The battery was dead, so he had to make a second trip. That was just the start of a summer of slams.)

After Dan rushed to another meeting, Ben and I talked over espresso about who we both knew and what he would do for The Messenger. I sent him an offer letter two days later.

Despite heartaches and mishaps over the ensuing months – including the death of his beloved mother, an accidental fall at a son’s Little League game in Alabama that left him with painfully broken ribs, and a brief hospitalization – Ben’s work for The Messenger helped give it credence and raise its profile, especially in Washington and on Wall Street.

Ben and our colleague Al Lewis tag-teamed, delivering smart Fed coverage and analysis; he wrote some sweet pieces, including a take-down of the smarmy GOP presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy; and along with a third musketeer, the inimitable Tom Lowry (plus Rocio Fabbro and Lily Meier), we began weekday delivery of a newsletter, TheMessengerBusiness with Ben White. By the time The Messenger was unceremoniously shuttered at the end of January, the newsletter was on track for an audience of 200,000 that valued Ben’s singular voice and incisive commentary.

Since Ben’s shockingly early death on Saturday, there has been a groundswell of admiration and love for him, especially on X, where his partner Sara (above with Ben on Fire Island) announced the bad news.

One of the features of the newsletter was “What Ben’s Watching.” It consisted of four or five items on Ben’s mind that capitalized on the fact that he had no shortage of insights and opinions on sports, music, movies, business, politics, and the Street.

Here’s hoping that whether Ben is in the sky, starting another life, or wherever, he is watching the outpouring of affection, and it’s bringing forth his easy smile.