Journalism is at an inflection point. History is repeating. Bad history. Authoritarianism is one the rise. Many of us are lost. 

As a journalist and educator, I fight this trend, in my core, in my bones, with all I have. I fight it with facts, truth and solutions. That's all we need. Not overly simplistic dogma, but complex truths that highlight our contradictory nature as a species, and rigorous solutions that follow a Solutions Journalism model.

This is serious work. But I also have fun. Like my YouTube show, Frenemies of the People!, a news satire podcast in which I play a caricature of an online conspiracy theorist named DB Cooper Junior. DBC2, as we call him, loves to talk about all the "illegal migratory birds" that are "eating all the nut and berries" and leaving none for the "real American birds."

I've also hosted Baffled with David DesRoches, a podcast taking a critical look at modern journalism practices (it was a finalist for the People's Choice Podcast Award, alongside The Problem with Jon Stewart). I have also hosted Isolated Together, about life during the lockdowns, and Select+CT in partnership with the University of Connecticut, about the digital media landscape in the Nutmeg State. 

As an adjunct professor for the journalism department at Quinnipiac, I teach The Art of the Podcast, Audio Storytelling, and Advanced Podcasting. I'm also Vice President of the Connecticut Foundation for Open Government, a board member of the Connecticut Council on Freedom of Information, a member of the Weaver High School Journalism Pathway Advisory Board, and I was a member of the Connecticut General Assembly's Artificial Intelligence Working Group.

Here are links to a few audio projects I reported and produced:

Poison Lurking in Schools: An episode about PCBs for the show Reveal

Making Sense: Deaf Children and the Choices Their Parents Face

America Decoded: Forecasting Abuse. A Sundance Institute-funded podcast about algorithmic decision-making by child welfare agencies.

Prior to entering academia, I spent a decade in journalism, and for half of that time I worked as an education reporter for WNPR, the NPR member station in Hartford, Conn. I also worked for a few newspapers, including The Darien Times.

Stories are available on the main menu above. Feel free to visit me on LinkedIn, and connect with me on Twitter and Instagram. You can also visit The Ferguson Files, an archive of the freelance work I did in Ferguson, Missouri after Michael Brown was killed by a police officer.

If you'd like to send me news tips, my email address is davidoftherocks[at]
gmail[dot]com