Reviews Write New Review
Location
Booking Fee
Fee: $##,###Get Pricing
Virtual Fee: $##,###Get Pricing
[email protected]
Jeff Roth
New York Times Editor-Researcher
In his nearly thirty years at The New York Times, Jeff Roth has become something of a living legend. From "the last man" tending the paper's massive archives to being one of the stars of the prize-winning documentary "Obit," he's earned a coveted ""oh, you'll probably get an obituary in the New York Times.""
Acknowledged in countless books, articles and documentaries, he runs and has reinvented the Times' 120 year- old "Morgues" for the Twenty-First Century. It's a subterranean lair of incalculable value; thousands of drawers, books, millions of photographs and hundreds of millions of news clippings weighing in at more than 600,000 lbs.
A polymath with an encyclopedic knowledge gathered from browsing thousands of files, from a "History of Beds" to "Death Rays" to "Lycanthropy." He always notes, ""It's no big deal, I just opened more drawers than anyone else and absorbed more."" He arrived there almost three decades ago to move boxes and shift cabinets, which he happily still does with vigor.
Jeff Roth's route to the Times was, as most everything about him, unconventional. A score of jobs, white-collar and blue. Jockeying cars and small trucks around the country, law enforcement, running a music label, stockbroker. He's lived enough of a life "pre-times" so that every once and awhile when an obituary is being written, he'll note to the writer, "oh yeah, I worked for that guy..." But it's his curiosity about what lies beneath and remembering why, that has taken him to be referred to at the Times and by archivists everywhere as "Mr. Morgue." But of course he never refers to himself as that, or an "archivist" too rarified, just a "filer."
Videos
Speech Topics
Archives and Libraries
History of The New York Times
History of Photojournalism
New York City, History, Histories related to Journalism
News
Related Speakers View all
Jenni Gold
Award-Winning Filmmaker & Thought Leader for Media I...
|
|
David Gelles
Author of "Mindful Work" & Reporter for the New York...
|
|
Elizabeth Landau
Senior Communications Specialist at NASA
|
|
Maureen Farrell
New York Times Finance Reporter
|
|
Kashmir Hill
Technology Reporter at The New York Times & Author o...
|
|
Jonathan Eig
Journalist & Bestselling Author Known for his Biogra...
|
|
Steve Chiger
Director of Literacy at Uncommon Schools; Author of ...
|
|
Alyssa London
CEO of Culture Story & Former Miss Alaska USA
|
|
Paul Amadeus Lane
Accessibility Consultant
|
|
Amir Windom
Grammy Award Winning Record & Entertainment Executiv...
|
|
Alexandra Hudson
Founder of Civic Renaissance & Author of "The Soul o...
|
|
Grant Faulkner
Executive Director of National Novel Writing Month; ...
|
|
Najwan Darwish
Palestinian Poet & Cultural Journalist
|
|
Jane Ferguson
Award-Winning War Reporter & Foreign Correspondent f...
|
|
Michael Harriot
Journalist, Author & Cultural Critic
|
|
Enuma Okoro
Nigerian-American Author and Lecturer; Columnist, Fi...
|
|
Sam Lipman-Stern
Documentary Filmmaker, Producer & Cinematographer; C...
|
|
Angela Sterritt
Award-Winning Investigative Journalist & Author of "...
|
|
Jonathan Rosen
Author & Editorial Director of Nextbook
|
|
Josh Planos, APR
Award-Winning Public Speaker, Public Relations Exper...
|