The founding editor of the alternative Boston weekly The Real Paper, Paul began his career in business journalism as a Nieman Fellow, studying at the Harvard Business school in 1976. He has been the business reporter at WGBH Boston since 1977, was named a member of TV Guide’s “Dream Team” of television reporters, and was the co-originator and executive editor of PBS's business documentary series, Enterprise.

His reporting has won Emmys in the ‘70s, ‘80s and ’90s and two Peabody awards, the most recent in 2004 for his reporting on the undercounting of unemployment.

Paul has also served on the Harvard Business School faculty, teaching media, finance and business history. He co-authored a better-than-average-seller, Life and Death on the Corporate Battlefield (1983), which appeared in Japanese, German and a pirated Taiwanese edition. He also helped create, with Morrie Schwartz, and wrote the introduction to, the book Morrie: In His Own Words, which preceded Tuesdays with Morrie.

Solman lectures occasionally on college campuses, has written for numerous publications, including both Forbes and Mother Jones magazines; he was for years East Coast Editor of the latter. A one-time cab driver, kindergarten teacher and management consultant, Paul is also the presenter for and author of Discovering Economics with Paul Solman, a series of videos distributed by McGraw-Hill to accompany the company’s introductory economics textbooks.