Pulitzer-Winner Walter Robinson Joins J-School at Northeastern University

By: E&P Staff Walter V. Robinson, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, will join the faculty at Northeastern University School of Journalism in January 2007 as Distinguished Professor of Journalism. Robinson is an alumnus of Northeastern University, and was the director of the 2003 Pulitzer Prize-winning Boston Globe Spotlight Team that investigated Catholic clergy sexual abuse.

Robinson joined The Boston Globe immediately after graduating Northeastern in 1974; he first gained entry to the Globe through Northeastern?s cooperative education program, which allows students to balance their coursework with full-time paid work experience.

Besides his Pulitzer, Robinson also has two honorary degrees: an honorary Doctor of Journalism from Northeastern, awarded in 2005, and an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from Emerson College. Additionally, Robinson was a Journalism Fellow at Stanford University.

Robinson has reported from over 48 states and 30 foreign countries, including Iraq, where he covered the Persian Gulf Crisis and the first Gulf War as The Boston Globe?s Middle East Bureau Chief. His wartime experience harkens back to his stint in the Army, which interrupted his studies at Northeastern. He was dispatched to Vietnam and served as an intelligence officer with the First Cavalry Division.

The Boston Globe?s Spotlight Team is renowned for its investigations, and Robinson has it since 1999. Among the other stories that the Spotlight Team produced were exposures of municipal corruption, misuse of charitable organizations, and the unfair practices of debt collection.

Robinson has served as city editor and assistant managing editor for local news at The Globe. Besides the Middle East Bureau Chief, he also worked as Boston City Hall Bureau Chief, Massachusetts State House Bureau Chief, and a Washington Bureau reporter during the Reagan and George H. W. Bush administrations.