Passings: Robert Pear
One colleague referred to him as 'the most important reporter in Washington you have never heard of.'
Robert
Pear, who covered health care and other national issues for 40 years at The New
York Times, has died from complications of a stroke. He was 69. Pear’s last
article was April 20 of this year. In the obit for the Times, Sam Roberts
wrote:
“Mr. Pear went about his reporting meticulously and, to the
wider public, inconspicuously. Appearances as a talking head reporter on cable
news were not for him. Colleagues described him as an almost sphinxlike good
listener, working in the Washington bureau newsroom standing up at a specially
built desk that he had gotten used to after undergoing back surgery.
Yet his reporting — exacting, authoritative and closely read,
particularly in Washington — spoke volumes. Allan Dodds Frank, an Emmy
Award-winning business journalist, described him in an email as ‘the most
important reporter in Washington you have never heard of.’”
