Roldo in a famous confrontation with Council President George Forbes in 1981. Photo: The Cleveland Press Collection via The Cleveland Memory Project
👋 Sam here. I had coffee yesterday with one of my mentors and heroes, Cleveland muckraker Roldo Bartimole.
State of play: Roldo is 92 years old and still writes occasionally (almost compulsively) on the same topics that dominated his reporting and commentary for more than 50 years:
The predations of big business, the sycophancy of local politicians, and the propaganda of the mainstream media.
The intrigue: I worry lately that Roldo — whom the Chicago Tribune once dubbed the "conscience of Cleveland" — may be fading from local memory.
And with him, the era of adversarial journalism he exemplified.
Flashback: In my early days at Cleveland Scene, Roldo sent me issues of Point of View, the independent newsletter he self-published from 1968-2000.
"Who Really Governs?," his opus on Cleveland's 20th century mayors, remains a seminal text.
