About
Robert "Bob" Hennelly is an award-winning, print and broadcast journalist. He has reported on a broad spectrum of major public policy questions, ranging from homeland security to the economy, environmental contamination to corruption.
His first book was published in 2021: “Stuck Nation — Can the United States change course on our history of choosing profits over people?”
Bob has a passion for bringing real news to his audience in a balanced and detailed way. He believes in "old-fashioned" journalism--investigating for himself the facts of a situation, and not assuming that press releases and news service wire-copy provide the whole story. Born in Paterson, New Jersey, he has always had a keen interest in the roles of immigration, local politics, business, labor unions, real estate ownership and environmental protection in the evolution of the United States.
Bob was on-air as a senior reporter for WNYC-New York Public Radio for more than 12 years. Before WNYC, he was national affairs correspondent for Pacifica Network News. He continues to be an on-air investigative reporter with WBGO-Newark Public Radio. His current investigative work, focusing on the New York civil service, is published in The Chief-Leader, a weekly newspaper covering government and the civil service in New York since 1897.
He also continues to be a regular contributor to Salon, InsiderNJ, and WBGO-Newark Public Radio.
Previously, he has covered the global economy for CBS MoneyWatch, and he was on staff at The Village Voice before his public radio career. He has been a freelance reporter for CBS's "60 Minutes" and for the New York Times. His writing has also been published by The Detroit Free Press, The Miami Herald, The Christian Science Monitor, The Bergen Record, and The Guardian.
Bob lives at the New Jersey Shore with his wife, Debbie, and their two rescue dogs.
Featured Work
Stuck Nation — Can the United States change course on our history of choosing profits over people?
In the midst of this once-in-a-century public health crisis, the United States was almost toppled from within by one of the two national political parties that a white-supremacist authoritarian had commandeered. For decades, American workers had been losing their leverage, as the world’s biggest corporations were able to successfully play one country’s workforce off another. For centuries, we have failed to directly address the crimes against humanity that were the cornerstones of American capitalism and are part of the continuum that extends systemic racism to our current circumstances. Our global brand may be equality, but the lived experience of tens of millions of Americans is the stark opposite, and there can be no forward motion if we fail to perceive just how deep a rut we are in.
Stuck Nation is the work of award-winning print and broadcast journalist, Robert “Bob” Hennelly. Its depth reflects his many decades of on-the-ground reporting, from the streets to historical archives and the White House. In his reporting and in this book, Hennelly bears witness to the ongoing assault of systemic racism, the toll from the World Trade Center toxic exposures, the attacks on our civil service by our own government, the breathtaking concentration of corporate media, the power of our collective agency, and more. It features interviews with the key players and shapers of history - everyday people - as well as with union leaders and politicians, historians and academics, organizers and activists.
Stuck Nation lifts up the stories of those whom our capitalist system would otherwise see ‘disappeared’. It bears the human cost of our system and our silence. It holds accounts of individuals and a broader movement willing to put everything at risk to change our national narrative. Through it all, Hennelly shares his observations on the origins of our national stuck-ness, his reporting on how it endures, and his analysis of what might be required for us to change the course of our historical patterns, so that America can begin putting the wellbeing of its people ahead of its profits.
