Dartmouth Alum and acclaimed New York Times reporter David Rosenbaum '63 was murdered Sunday night in Washington, D.C. He was 63 years old.
Rosenbaum died from a brain injury after being struck in the head during a street robbery in the nation's capitol, where he was walking near his home on Friday night, according to police.
"He wanted some fresh air and decided to take a walk," Marcus Rosenbaum, the victim's brother, told the Washington Post.
According to Sgt. Joe Gentile of the Washington, D.C. Police, police officers discovered Rosenbaum at 9:20 p.m. Friday without his wallet. Marcus Rosenbaum said that a neighbor found his brother and called 911.
Gentile said that police are investigating a report that two men were seen leaving the area in a dark-colored vehicle.
Rosenbaum worked at The New York Times as an editor and reporter for over 35 years. During his tenure he served as chief congressional correspondent, chief domestic policy correspondent, chief economics correspondent, assistant news editor and business editor in the Washington bureau of The New York Times.
While in Hanover, Rosenbaum wrote for The Dartmouth, an experience he praised in a 1999 interview with the same publication.
"Working on a small paper is amazing, you get to do everything," he said. "It is the best way to learn about journalism."
The Dartmouth awarded Rosenbaum its annual alumni award for distinguished service in journalism and public affairs in 1996, and he spoke to students about media bias.
In 1990, Rosenbaum shared the George Polk Award for national reporting for his coverage of the budget deal of that year. During his career, he reported on a wide range of national stories including the Senate Watergate hearings of 1973 and the Iran-Contra hearings of 1987.
The New York Times said about their distinguished reporter, "he wrote about the intersection of politics, economics and government policy with uncommon depth, clarity and a keen eye for the story behind the story."
According to Robert D. Reischauer, former head of the Congressional Budget Office, Rosenbaum was a reporter with an unusually astute grasp of the interplay between policy and politics.
"All of us tend to speak in jargon. He would say: 'Come on! Explain it, explain.' He would get enough from several of us to then turn it into something the average reader would find understandable and interesting," Reischauer told The New York Times. "He was one who wanted to peel back the layers of the onion from the smooth and superficial that the spinmeisters would like us to think is the real world, to the core that makes your eyes start to cry."
Rosenbaum was also a 25-year member of the steering committee of the Reporters Committee for the Freedom of the Press, a nonprofit organization devoted to protecting the First Amendment and reporters' legal rights.
Rosenbaum was born on March 1, 1942, in Miami, Fla., but grew up in Tampa. After receiving his bachelor's degree from Dartmouth, he earned a master's in journalism from Columbia University in 1965.
In addition to writing for The Dartmouth, Rosenbaum, a government major, was a brother at Kappa Kappa Kappa fraternity, a member of the dormitory committee for two years and played squash and tennis, according to The Aegis.
Rosenbaum is survived by his wife, Virginia, a researcher at the Investor Responsibility Research Center and the author of several books on corporate governance; a daughter, Dorothy, of Bethesda, Md.; a son, Daniel, of Washington, D.C.; a brother, Marcus, a senior editor at National Public Radio; and two grandchildren.
