Lawrence Roberts

As we think about President Lincoln on what would have been his 217th birthday, let’s listen to, and be inspired by, his words. Each generation is asked to preserve and extend the ideas of freedom and democracy.

"It takes years to make good reporters...They are grown only in newsrooms, not at home with laptops. They are taught by older craftsmen and professionals, through stories and lore."

The lessons of Kent State Fifty years later in Minneapolis, the script hasn't changed.

For those of us who came of age in the era of Kent State, the striking parallels with Minnesota are impossible to ignore. My piece today on then and now:
www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

On the day The Washington Post slashes more than a third of its newsroom and squanders its role as the nation's second-greatest newspaper, the great Ruth Marcus explains how Jeff Bezos brought it down.

The #ChurchOfRockAndRoll #33 If George Harrison's chord at the start of A Hard Day's Night kickstarted Swinging London, then McGuinn's chiming riff at the start of Mr Tambourine Man a year later heralded the High Sixties, the moment when everything came into colour.

Today, in the Sunday print NYT, we published an investigative look at Harold Hamm, the 13th child of Oklahoma sharecroppers who started an oil company named Continental, which turned him into a billionaire, powerbroker and friend of Donald J. Trump. You may never have heard of Hamm. But you should

Trump Officials Celebrated With Cake After Slashing Aid. Then People Died of Cholera. Behind closed doors in Washington, top advisers made a series of decisions that had devastating repercussions for the poorest country on earth. We went to South Sudan and found people who died as a re...

In DC, Trump officials celebrated the decimation of USAID with a sheet cake.

In South Sudan, USAID budget cuts closed a health clinic in the middle of a cholera outbreak.

Tor Top had to take his sick mother to the hospital, 8 hours away. She died on the way.

www.propublica.org/article/usai...

The campaign to make Richard Nixon great again The late president, who resigned in disgrace in 1974, actually wasn’t a crook, pundits on the right argue.

I'm featured in this piece as one of the historians who are monitoring the latest wave of Nixon revisionism. You can add Michael Knowles to the growing list of conservatives who are defending Tricky Dick's honor. nbcnews.com/politics/pol... @nbcnews.com

YouTube video by Perry Henzell Jimmy Cliff Recording The Harder They Come In Studio Session

Jimmy Cliff, RIP: www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHAb...

To understand how and why Dick Cheney exercised power like no other vice president, check out the WaPo's Pulitzer winning series from 2007: www.pulitzer.org/winners/jo-b...

If you’d rather not know the worst thing Henry Kissinger ever did to America, “American Experience: Kissinger” is the documentary for you. #AmericanExperience #Kissinger

My review was too long for publishers, so I'm giving it to you free.

www.scribd.com/document/939...

Trump’s Son Is Poised to Profit From Pentagon Drone Proposal

NEW: Don Trump Jr.--after helping pick top Pentagon officials to join his dad's administration--has now become an investor and advisor to Pentagon drone builders. This as President Trump orders Pentagon to buy more drones. A NYT investigation of this latest conflict.

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/24/u...

Opinion | Who Was Behind the Largest Mass Arrest in U.S. History? (Published 2020)

h/t @lawrenceproberts.bsky.social
Explore this gift article from The New York Times. You can read it for free without a subscription. www.nytimes.com/2020/08/06/o...

RIP Susan Stamberg, icon of the golden age of public radio.

Congratulations to @davidjlynch.bsky.social on publication of his superb new book "The World's Worst Bet," which finally explains one of the great economic puzzles of our time -- the rise and fall of globalization.

Bill Moyers, Presidential Aide and Veteran of Public TV, Dies at 91

RIP Bill Moyers, an LBJ confidant who went on to become one of the most esteemed journalists of his era. "In an age of broadcast blowhards," writes Janny Scott, the soft-spoken Baptist minister examined power and money in America, winning 30 Emmys. www.nytimes.com/2025/06/26/b...

This photo of Spock, by the way, was taken May 3, 1971 after he was rounded up in DC as part of the biggest mass arrest in US history -- 12,000 people detained in all. Nixon summoned the National Guard plus 10,000 troops and Marines to stop a blockade of Washington by Vietnam antiwar protesters.

Lawrence Roberts
Wrote this book May Day 1971 about Mass
Arrests during the May
Day protest by
The Nixon administration
This was exactly
Like what's happening
Now
It was the largest
Mass Arrest in
American history
Check out this book
For insight into
Today's issues!

The Law Firms That Appeased Trump—and Angered Their Clients After firms struck deals to avoid punitive executive orders, some big clients decided to take their business elsewhere.

The head of Sullivan & Cromwell, Trump’s leading enabler among law firms, told partners that the EO’s targeting firms were unconstitutional.
So S&C and its ilk admit they folded instead of suing in cases they believed they would win.
A triumph of greed and expediency.

www.wsj.com/us-news/law/...

Opinion | A.G. Sulzberger: A Free People Need a Free Press

NYT coverage of Donald Trump: "The single largest body of accountability reporting ever produced by a single news organization on a single subject."
www.nytimes.com/2025/05/13/o...

The Crypto President A Times investigation shows how much President Trump and his family have profited from his championing of cryptocurrency.

And here is an episode of The Daily that posted Thursday May 1 that walks through the story. You can listen and/or read. What matters is you engage with this information and are informed. Accountability matters. www.nytimes.com/2025/05/01/p...

This is a tragedy of the first order—a self-inflicted wound on an institution that represents the best of our democracy and civil society. Do you think there is anything like it in Moscow or Beijing?

with apologies to @xkcd.com

What Went Wrong at the Center for Public Integrity? Reflections after talking with former leaders

In light of last night’s news from @columjournreview.bsky.social reporting that the Center for Public Integrity will soon dissolve, here’s my column from a year ago analyzing its collapse.
Still important lessons here, especially for boards and funders.
dicktofel.substack.com/p/what-went-...

Reporter, National New York City, United States; Remote, United States

🚨 JOURNALISM JOB ALERT 🚨

We're hiring for an investigative reporter to join @propublica.org's national news coverage team!

All the details, including salary range and application form, here 👇👇

Orwell: "Spring is here... and neither the dictators nor the bureaucrats, deeply as they disapprove of the process, are able to prevent it."

One of the best journalism jobs in the world is now open: NYT is looking for a new bureau chief to replace me in the Pacific Northwest.

The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans U.S. national-security leaders included me in a group chat about upcoming military strikes in Yemen. I didn’t think it could be real. Then the bombs started falling.

Astonishing must read from @theatlantic.com
US national security adviser adds magazine editor to text chain on Signal, where he, VP, SecState, SecDef, DNI, CIA, White House chief of staff, etc discuss war plans against Houthis, including 2-hour warning of attack
www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...

A Russian state media reporter gained entry to the Oval Office for Trump-Zelensky sit-down | CNN Business A member of Russia’s state-owned news agency gained access to the Oval Office on Friday to cover President Trump’s sit-down with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky – even as the AP and Reuters wer...

Hard to imagine ordinary folks thinking it's okay for the White House to bar the Associated Press and Reuters from observing an Oval Office session while bringing the Russian news agency into the room.
www.cnn.com/2025/02/28/m...

Rifling Through the Archives With Legendary Historian Robert Caro Reams of papers, revealing how the scholar came to write his iconic biographies of Robert Moses and Lyndon B. Johnson, are preserved forever in New York. But his work is far from over

My kind of breaking news: Robert Caro on next installment of his LBJ biography: “Well, I’ll tell you what pages I’m up to—951.” www.smithsonianmag.com/history/rifl...