Sebastian Rotella
Sebastian Rotella is a reporter at ProPublica. An award-winning foreign correspondent and investigative reporter, Sebastian's coverage includes terrorism, intelligence and organized crime.
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Sebastian Rotella is a senior reporter at ProPublica. An award-winning foreign correspondent and investigative reporter, he worked for almost 23 years for the Los Angeles Times before joining ProPublica in 2010. He covers international security issues including terrorism, intelligence, organized crime, human rights and migration. His reporting has taken him across the Americas and Europe, and to the Middle East, South Asia and North Africa.
In 2020, Sebastian was part of the ProPublica team whose coverage of the pandemic and the CDC was named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for public service. The Association of Health Care Journalists gave that coverage the Award for Excellence in Health Care Journalism in the investigative category.
In 2016, he was co-writer and correspondent for Terror in Europe, a Frontline documentary that was a finalist for the Investigative Reporters and Editors broadcast/video award. In 2013, his Finding Oscar investigation with This American Life won a Peabody Award, a Dart Center Award, and two awards from the Overseas Press Club. In 2012, he was recognized with Italy’s Urbino Press Award for excellence in American journalism. His A Perfect Terrorist investigation of the Mumbai attacks (with Frontline) was nominated for an Emmy, and the online version of the story got an Overseas Press Club Award in 2011.
In 2006, he was named a Pulitzer finalist for international reporting for his L.A. Times coverage of terrorism and Muslim communities in Europe, which won the German Marshall Fund’s senior award for excellence in European reporting. He was part of a team whose coverage of al-Qaida received an Overseas Press Club award and finalist honors for Harvard University’s Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting in 2002. In 2001, he won Columbia University’s Maria Moors Cabot Prize for his career coverage of Latin America. His work in Latin America also won honors from the Overseas Press Club, Inter-American Press Association and the American Society of Newspaper Editors.
At the L.A. Times, Sebastian served as a correspondent at the Mexican border, in South America and in Europe. His border reporting inspired two songs on Bruce Springsteen’s album The Ghost of Tom Joad (1995).
Sebastian is the author of three novels: Rip Crew (2018), The Convert’s Song (2014), and Triple Crossing (2011).He is also the author of Twilight on the Line: Underworlds and Politics at the U.S.-Mexico Border (1998). He speaks Spanish, French and Italian. He is a graduate of the University of Michigan, studied at the University of Barcelona, and was born in Chicago.
Trail of Paris Attackers Winds to Terrorism’s Longtime Outpost
As a pre-dawn raid today outside Paris targets suspected mastermind of last week’s attack, his roots point to the shadow Belgium casts over the terror threat in Europe.
Sicario’s Dirty War on Mexican Cartels is Not Yet Reality
Denis Villeneuve’s movie gets much right about the borderlands but crosses the line into exaggeration. A veteran border correspondent compares the film’s underworld to the one he knows.
Two Who Moved Through Europe’s Revolving-Door Prisons Get Terrorist Designation
Authorities say former members of a Paris neighborhood gang ended up aiding the Charlie Hebdo attack, recruiting militant fighters to Syria.
Q&A: Can a Divided Europe Handle the Refugee Crisis?
Deaths at sea and a chaotic refugee influx reflect the failure of European Union leaders to settle on a common immigration policy, one of Italy’s top elected officials tells ProPublica.
Europe’s Revolving-Door Prisons Compound Growing Terror Threat
Sentences are short compared to the U.S.; two Charlie Hebdo attackers and another suspected plotter, now in Yemen, cycled through French jails.
The Hidden Intelligence Breakdowns Behind the Mumbai Attacks
After Edward Snowden, the government said its controversial surveillance programs had stopped a terrorist – David Coleman Headley. In “American Terrorist,” ProPublica and PBS “Frontline” show why the claim is largely untrue.
Alberto Nisman and Argentina’s History of Assassinations and Suspicious Suicides
Whether the crusading prosecutor's death is found to be a suicide or homicide, many Argentines probably won't believe it. The past has taught them to always look for the sinister explanation.
In 2008 Mumbai Attacks, Piles of Spy Data, But an Uncompleted Puzzle
Indian and British intelligence agencies monitored the online activities of a key plotter but couldn’t connect the dots.
A Commander of the Dos Erres Massacre Squad Gets 10 Years in Prison
A federal judge sentences Jorge Vinicio Sosa Orantes to the maximum term for lying on immigration forms about his role in the deaths of 250 people during the Guatemalan civil war.
Ex-Guatemalan Commando Guilty of Concealing Role in Massacre
Jorge Vinicio Sosa Orantes, who obtained U.S. and Canadian citizenship, is the highest-ranking soldier convicted on charges related to the slaughter of 250 villagers during the country’s civil war.