The group of 10 journalists and news executives were singled out for their major contributions to the profession. Said TJFR chairman Dean Rotbart, "So much of what we read and watch about business news today is a result of their enormous efforts."

The Top 10 were:

• 10. Carol J. Loomis, Fortune magazine's widely admired writer and reporter who during her 45 years at Fortune has written with authority and conviction.
  
• 9. Myron "Mike" Kandel, a CNN commentator who has not only stood out in two media, print and broadcast, but worked tirelessly to improve the craft of business journalism.
  
• 8. Michael Bloomberg, the bold founder of Bloomberg News service and related news organizations that bear his name.
  
• 7. Ida M. Tarbell, the early 20th century investigative reporter whose reporting led to the eventual legal breakup of Standard Oil.
  
• 6. James W. Michaels, the longtime Forbes editor who served as a mentor to many of the nation's top business writers.
  
• 5. Vermont C. Royster, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winning editor of The Wall Street Journal who helped build the paper's reputation as the nation's most intelligent voice for business reporting.
  
• 4. Henry R. Luce, founder of Time and Fortune magazines.
  
• 3. Clarence W. Barron, a crusading journalist who purchased Dow Jones & Company in 1902 and founded Barron's magazine in 1921.
  
• 2. Sylvia F. Porter, the first nationally recognized personal finance writer whose column at its zenith reached 40 million readers worldwide.
  
• 1. Bernard Kilgore, a visionary editor of The Wall Street Journal who reshaped the business news profession from a newsroom backwater of narrow interest to a staple of mainstream journalism.
  

Longtime Fortune editor and CBSMarketwatch columnist Marshall Loeb praised Ms. Loomis for having "written some of the most memorable business stories anywhere in American journalism." As her former editor, he told of her pouring over five years' worth of annual reports line by line as part of the research she conducts for corporate profiles. Said Mr. Marshall: "She is brave, witty, fiercely honest and an icon of integrity."

CNNfn president Shelby Coffey called Myron Kandel a "beacon of business journalism." Said Mr. Coffey: "He is the Ernie Pyle of business journalism, that is the working correspondent apex, the best example, the tip of the top. He knows everybody who is anybody in the financial world and a whole lot of just barely somebodys besides."

CNNfn president Shelby Coffey congratulates Myron Kandel on his Top 10 honor.

Mr. Kandel had his own thoughts for the evening: "Let me make a prediction for the next century, the best is yet to come and many of the best are in this room right now."

Honoree Michael Bloomberg prophesized as well: "Technology is great at delivering data, but it has always and always will take human beings to take data to turn it into information and turn information into knowledge that in the end is what the public and society needs."

Radio host Charlie Rose congratulates Top 10 recipient Michael Bloomberg.

Mr. Bloomberg also expressed the responsibility that business journalists have to the public. "We have the right to represent them, but we also have the obligation to not let our commercial interests get in the way of truth and justice and accuracy and putting things in context."

Caroline Tupper Tarbell, who was born on her great aunt Ida Tarbell's place in Connecticut, said Ms. Tarbell would have enjoyed congratulating all of her "children" -- today's investigative journalists. "I never found her less than caring for those who were working for the good of the world," she said.

Steve Forbes thanked former Forbes editor James W. Michaels for "being a fantastic individual, a fantastic editor who never stopped learning, who never fell into a rut, who always tried to bring out the best in us and never hesitated to criticize or to praise."

Editor in Chief of Forbes Steve Forbes accompanies longtime Forbes editor James W. Michaels to the podium.

Mr. Michaels said he was envious of today's business journalists. "I came into business journalism at a time when it was back page, dull stuff, ho-hum, who cares, and my career has lasted long enough to see me see it reach the point where business, the economy, the stock market, is the No. 1 story, the thing that interests people more than anything else."

The Wall Street Journal editor Robert Bartley described Vermont Royster as "one of the clearest and most graceful writers I have ever had the opportunity to read." He added that Mr. Royster's selection to the Top 10 was a tribute to all opinion journalists, commentators and editorialists.

Journalism historian Mitch Stephens of New York University told of Mr. Luce's founding of Fortune. "Business, Luce had argued, was the smartest, most important of all American occupations, yet it has no medium of expression except the financial pages of newspapers and the least distinguished of magazines."

Clarence W. Barron's great-granddaughter Jane McElree, a member of the board of Dow Jones & Company, said it was "thrilling to me that of all the wonderful people being honored this evening, more than one-quarter of them have either worked for The Wall Street Journal, Barron's or SmartMoney."

Jane McElree shares some family memories of her great-grandfather, Clarence W. Barron, a Top 10 honoree.

Sylvia Porter's successor Kathy Kristof of the Los Angeles Times Syndicate, relayed the responsibility she felt for taking over Porter's column. "People kept calling me and asking me if I was going to write books or software." Ms. Kristof called Ms. Porter's most remarkable asset her reporting. "She never accepted a sound bite. She never accepted a glib response as an answer. She felt that her readers deserved more."