Larry Birger

Like Roone Arledge, who created ABC's "Monday Night Football," Larry Birger decided to make something of the first workday of the week.

In July 1980, Mr. Birger invented the Miami Herald's "Business Monday" section, which won him the Society of Business Editors and Writers Distinguished Achievement Award in 1995.

The section grew from Mr. Birger's observation that no local newspaper, not even the Miami News, where he worked 19 years before joining the Herald, was doing a good job of covering local business. He'd even gone so far as to raise $100,000 to start a business journal for South Florida, but returned the money unspent.

Undaunted and brimming with energy even then in his 50s, he convinced Knight-Ridder CEO Alvah H. Chapman to let him start "Business Monday." His argument: It would help the newspaper compete for local advertising dollars that were being lured away by smaller publications.

"Timing was everything," Mr. Birger said. And it was perfect. Knight-Ridder invested $1 million, and it paid off handsomely. "Business Monday" was a hit with readers and advertisers, growing to 72 pages, tripling the Herald's business news staff and spawning dozens of imitators at newspapers around the country.

Mr. Birger left the section to edit a new magazine called "Runways," about commercial aviation, which folded. In his 60s, he returned to the Herald and the section he incubated in 1991.

"The stories were not that revolutionary," he says of "Business Monday." "The package was different--handy and enjoyable."

He died Dec. 17, 1998.