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Robert J. Samuelson

American journalist

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionFeb 13, 2026
Entity authorityQ7345969
Source-derived summary

Robert Jacob Samuelson (December 23, 1945 – December 13, 2025) was an American conservative journalist for The Washington Post, where he wrote about business and economic issues from 1977 to 2020. He was a columnist for Newsweek magazine from 1984 to 2011.

Career

Samuelson began his career in journalism as a reporter on the business desk of The Washington Post in 1969 and left the paper to become a freelancer in 1973. His work has appeared in The Sunday Times, The New Republic and the Columbia Journalism Review. He joined the National Journal in 1976, where he wrote the "Economic Focus" column. He was a contributing editor there from 1981 to 1984, when he left to write for Newsweek. At age 75, Samuelson posted his last op-ed article in The Washington Post on September 14, 2020.

Personal life and death

Samuelson was born in New York City on December 23, 1945, and raised in nearby White Plains, New York. He received his bachelor's degree in 1967 from Harvard University, where he concentrated in government. He and his wife, Judith Herr, lived in Bethesda, Maryland, and have three children.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Robert J. Samuelson” as american journalist. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Robert, Samuelson and American.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1945, 2025, 1977, 2020—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1945-12-23. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Robert, Samuelson and American providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Robert J. Samuelson”, the useful work is to connect “american journalist” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Feb 13, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7345969. VIAF identifies the subject as 65717682. The Library of Congress control number is n95049646. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1945, 2025, 1977 and 2020.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

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  2. Expand the search: follow Robert J. Samuelson primary sources, Robert J. Samuelson archive and Robert research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Robert J. Samuelson” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.