Voting Station

Walter V. Robinson

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Commentator

The Resume

    (1948- )
    Born in Boston, Massachusetts
    Investigative journalist
    Nicknamed 'Robby'
    Local, state, and national political reporter
    Editor and reporter with The Boston Globe (1981- )
    White House Correspondent for the Globe during the Reagan and Bush Presidencies (1984-92)
    Editor of the Spotlight team at the Globe, the newspaper's investigative team, until 2006
    Distinguished Professor of Journalism at the Northeastern University in Boston, since 2007
    Best known for his 5-month investigative expose, along with Sacha Pfeiffer and Michael Rezendes, covering the Roman Catholic clergy sexual abuse scandal, for which the team won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, which he personally accepted
    Coverage also won him Harvard's Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting, the Investigative Reporters and Editors Award, and the Selden Ring Award
    Co-wrote, and Edited, 'Betrayal: The Crisis in the Catholic Church' with the Investigative Staff of the Boston Globe (2003)
    Portrayed by Michael Keaton in Thomas McCarthy's film 'Spotlight' (2015)

Why he might be annoying:

    He shares a name with a postmodern painter and art critic.
    He was dubbed 'Mad-Dog Robinson' by his colleagues.
    He admits to the habit of regularly inserting 'umms' and 'ahhs' into his conversations.
    Some of his tactics going after Al Gore were called into question in 2000.
    He accused civil rights leader, Paul Parks, of embellishing his war record.
    He was duped into following a lead falsely discrediting Paul E. Edwards' accusations of experiencing sexual abuse by a Bishop and a Boston Archdiocese attorney (2002).
    The View panelists pretended to laugh at his jokes during his guest appearance.
    He is lionized as the Editor who shed light on the sexual abuse cover-ups of the Catholic Church, despite the fact that he was among the Globe staff that was instrumental in shutting down the first and only investigation of any of the 24 active priests accused this year in the Archdiocese of Boston, in the early 1990s.
    In fact, by his own admittance, the only reason he and his team pursued the lead, in 2001, to begin with, was that the then-new Managing Editor of the Globe insisted they investigate the claims of sexual abuse against the Church and file to have the related records unsealed.

Why he might not be annoying:

    He has been compared to Bob Woodward.
    He served as a Captain in US Army Intelligence before becoming a Globe reporter.
    He led one of the Spotlight Team's last major investigations; an expose on 'Debtors Hell,' exposed the practices of debt collectors.
    His moral compass as a journalist is 'Go hard. Ask the tough questions. Test what you get. Get it right. Be fair. And then, hit hard.'
    He was among the journalists to expose historian Joseph Ellis' lies about serving in Vietnam.
    He won the Archaeological Institute of America Award for outstanding public service, for his coverage of artwork/antiquity looting (1999).
    He took Dan Rather to task over his botching the coverage of Bush's military record, asserting that his blunder made it difficult for other reporters to report the facts.
    Michael Keaton told interviewers that he was the kind of guy he would hang out with even if he wasn't studying to portray him.
    His coverage of the Catholic Church's cover-up was profoundly personal for him; a former student of a private Jesuit Academy, he was shocked to discover that one of the resident Priests had sexually abused a close friend of his who played hockey.
    His unearthing the story brought forth changes in the Catholic Church's policies, its influence over the state legislature, and set off an international crack-down on sexual abuse of children by the clergy.
    He whole-heartedly endorsed the 'Spotlight' film; not only praising Keaton's portrayal of him, but going so far as to say that he wished Tom McCarthy and the screenwriters 'were in the newspaper business,' due to how thoroughly they researched it.

Credit: BoyWiththeGreenHair


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    In 2023, Out of 13 Votes: 53.85% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 3 Votes: 33.33% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 16 Votes: 75.00% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 22 Votes: 90.91% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 6 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2018, Out of 14 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2017, Out of 183 Votes: 84.70% Annoying
    In 2016, Out of 6 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2015, Out of 2 Votes: 50.0% Annoying