Investigative Journalism in Uncertain Times: Truth, Accountability and a Free Press

Investigative reporting is journalism's costliest and riskiest endeavor. It is most vulnerable to government pressure because it is the most worthwhile work journalists do: It holds people in power accountable. Walter V. Robinson, editor-at-large for The Boston Globe, led the Pulitzer-prize winning team of Spotlight reporters who uncovered the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic church. For the 2025 Taricani Lecture on First Amendment Rights, Robinson will discuss the challenges facing investigative journalists when press freedoms are threatened and the vital role of protecting a free press in a democratic society.

About Walter Robinson:

Walter V. Robinson is Editor At Large at The Boston Globe, where his high-impact stories about local, national and international events have graced the front page since 1972. Robinson led the Globe Spotlight Team that won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for its investigation of the sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests.

The Spotlight Team’s groundbreaking investigation exposed a decades-long cover-up that, in Boston alone, shielded the crimes of nearly 250 priests. Twenty years later, the team's work continues to spark similar disclosures across the country and around the world. Spotlight's investigation was made into the 2015 Academy Award-winning film, “Spotlight,’’ starring Michael Keaton as Robinson.

In the mid-1970s Robinson covered politics and government for the Globe, and went on to cover the White House during the Reagan and first Bush Administrations. He covered the presidential election in 1984 and was the newspaper's lead reporter for presidential elections in 1988 and 1992. In 2000, he did investigative reporting on that year's candidates.

In 1990 and 1991, Robinson was the paper's Middle East Bureau chief during the first Persian Gulf War. In 1992, Robinson became the Globe’s city editor, and then for three years the metro editor. In the late 1990s, he was the Globe's roving foreign and national correspondent, and spent much of that time reporting on artworks looted by the Nazis that ended up in American museums; and the illicit international trade in looted antiquities. For his reporting on antiquities, the Archaeological Institute of America gave Robinson its first-ever Outstanding Public Service award.

Since 2007, he has also been Distinguished Professor of Journalism at Northeastern University. As a Northeastern journalism professor, Robinson and his investigative reporting students produced 26 Page One investigative stories for The Boston Globe. He was the Edith Kinney Gaylord Visiting Professor in Investigative Journalism at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University. At the Cronkite School, his students produced 13 investigative reports in just four years.

Before joining the Globe in 1972, he served four years in the US Army, including a year in Vietnam as an intelligence officer with the First Cavalry Division.

Robinson is a 1974 graduate of Northeastern University. He has been awarded honorary degrees by Northeastern and Emerson College. He is a board member of the New Bedford Light and the Plymouth Independent. He is a past board member of the New England First Amendment Coalition and the Plymouth Public Library Foundation. He has been a journalism fellow at Stanford University, and a Pulitzer Prize juror four times. Robinson is co-author of the 2002 book, "Betrayal: Crisis in the Catholic Church."

About the lecture:

The Taricani Lecture Series honors the work of respected journalist Jim Taricani, who worked tirelessly in support of First Amendment rights. The series is free and open to the public. Register to receive the links to join the live stream. Links will be sent to registrants via email one day before the event.

For more information, visit the Harrington School of Communication and Media's webpage.