Straight Down the Middle

Campus Report | January 12, 2009 | Malcolm A. Kline

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Straight Down the Middle

by: Malcolm A. Kline, January 12, 2009

Accuracy in Academia lost a great friend with the passing of Troy University journalism professor Chris Warden, the author of AIA’s forthcoming textbook Voodoo Anyone? How to Understand Economics Without Really Trying.

He passed away on January 4, due to complications from hip surgery. The loss to his expansive coterie of close friends on both coasts and throughout the South is even more incalculable, your servant among them.

I last spoke to Chris the day before Thanksgiving when, as usual, he was in good spirits—upbeat and funny as ever—with plans and enthusiasm for last-minute changes and addenda to the book. AIA featured Chris in an appearance at the National Press Club last July.

Parts of that talk are on YouTube and AIA plans to put all of the lecture up on its web site. He spoke to a capacity audience comprised mainly of students.

Many of the attendees, like his charges at Troy and staffers and interns under his supervision in other jobs, stayed long after hours to hear his insights. Chris always took his jobs and responsibilities very seriously but did not take himself too seriously.

So many of the clichés most of us try vainly to live by Chris actually did. For instance, he worked hard and played hard, mostly golf and the horses.

He practiced informal efficiency. He was one of those rare people who could actually be both informal and efficient at the same time, for example, banging out flawless copy while clad in a Hawaiian shirt with a turtleneck underneath.

We can’t find any record of Chris ever having to make a correction on one of his stories....