SALT LAKE CITY — Max Knudson, former longtime enterprise editor for the Deseret Information, died peacefully in his house Wednesday after a struggle with most cancers.
He was 80 years outdated.
Throughout his life, Knudson occupied myriad roles, together with a espresso store supervisor, a folks singer and even a army man after being drafted into the Military within the Sixties — however he spent the vast majority of his profession as a newspaperman.
His first style of reporting got here whereas he was within the Military, serving as an data specialist — the position being “the Military’s time period for a reporter or an editor or a PR man,” he stated in an interview in 2001.
His profession in journalism was considerably serendipitous, then, because the place was purported to go to a school graduate with the final title Knudsen, to not a person who had solely attended one quarter of school.
Earlier than being drafted, he had been busy along with his different pursuits. He married for the primary time in 1964, however the relationship led to divorce.
He gave faculty one other shot in 1967, returning house to Salt Lake Metropolis and attending the College of Utah after his time within the Military and a reasonably dismal job as a supervisor at 7-Eleven.
“By now I do know that the world’s a chilly, merciless place, and that is my final likelihood to make one thing of my life aside from the fast-food business, so man, do I research,” he stated in 2001. “I began out within the gap as a result of I had all these E’s and incompletes from that first quarter in 1958, however I ultimately overcame it. I majored in English, as a result of that appeared just like the logical factor for someone who loved studying and was good at writing.”
He later switched to a journalism diploma and graduated in 1969. Whereas he was in faculty, he met his eventual second spouse, Karen Christensen, they usually married in 1970.
Knudson was a loving father and had three youngsters — a son, Erik Byron Knudson, and two daughters, Kelly Peters Christensen Knudson and Lindsay Elizabeth Knudson Williams.
Knudson discovered his first newspaper job the identical yr he graduated, turning into an intern with the Salt Lake Tribune in 1969. He later left Salt Lake Metropolis to work for The Nationwide Enquirer, which supplied to pay him triple what he was making.
He was fired after simply 4 months.
“It was most likely the toughest job I’ve ever had,” he stated. “The hours had been completely relentless. You labored seven days every week, 13 or 14 hours a day.”
“It had sounded really easy earlier than I went down there. I believed that should you had been keen to simply pervert your journalistic instincts and promote your self for cash, all you needed to do was make the stuff up. Nevertheless it didn’t work that approach. It really was journalism of a sort, but it surely wasn’t what I had been skilled in. I used to be the one American there. Everybody else was from Britain or Australia and knew all about tabloid journalism.”
After one other stint on the Salt Lake Tribune and a pair public relations jobs, he discovered his longtime house with the Deseret Information in 1979.
Knudson had initially utilized for an investigative reporting place however was advised it was being stuffed in-house. He was as a substitute supplied the enterprise editor place, which he accepted.
“It was fairly a aid to me to get this job,” he stated. “It’s the place I belonged. It’s what I do greatest.”
Knudson labored because the Deseret Information’ enterprise editor for 22 years. Amongst his many articles, the automotive tales he wrote had been amongst his hottest.
“If I’ve any fame in any respect, it’s for the automobile opinions,” he stated. “All the opposite 1000’s of tales I’ve written on funds and banking and retail and growth, that isn’t what individuals ask me about. They all the time ask me, ‘Hey, Max, what are you driving at this time?’”
He put down the pen and retired in 2002.
“Max leaves a legacy of well-crafted newspaper tales, all the time clearly written, with out typos and made each deadline,” his obituary states. “Please proceed to assist our valuable newspapers as they’re a lifeline to understanding our ever-changing world.”
