Legendary Tampa Bay newsman Rob Lorei, who opened doors for countless others, is dead at age 70

Last March, days after announcing plans to leave the WEDU public affairs program he hosted for almost 24 years, Rob Lorei was already thinking about his next steps.

Yes, there was the treatment he’d get for stage four cancer of the liver and colon, but other people loomed large in his head. In particular, hundreds of folks in East Tampa and Sun City Center all gathered at a meeting about social security. “I think people are furious,” he told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay about the firestorm surrounding the entitlement program that week.

At that moment—with nearly 1,400 episodes of “Florida This Week” under his belt, and 43 years as WMNF news director to hang his hat on—the graduate of the journalism school at Ohio’s Antioch University was looking for another voice to amplify.

In the weeks following, he did just that, observing “No Kings” protests and even guest-writing recent editions of the “As We Heard It” column for Tampa’s 103-year-old trilingual newspaper La Gaceta.

Giving the community a microphone, and listening, was Lorei’s specialty—and he effortlessly showed journalists how to speak real truth to power while uplifting the values of peace, civil rights and social justice.

That talent for opening doors, hearts, and minds is what many are talking about following Lorei’s death last Sunday at the age of 70. Tributes and mentions from journalists at Democracy Now!, NPR, and others are pouring out online, but so are those from locals who knew him most intimately.

“His words were a hammer but he used them with deep thought, and almost a tenderness” Lynn Marvin Dingfelder, a documentarian who ended up being Lorei’s first producer when the WEDU show was called “Tampa Bay Week”, told CL.

Like many who crossed his path, she met Lorei through work. Mark Feldstein, who worked investigations for WTSP in the ‘80s, brought Dingfelder to the dilapidated South Tampa house that served as the headquarters for WMNF, which Lorei and a handful of scrappy dreamers founded after collecting donations door-to-door.

Tampa’s community radio station is where Lorei produced not just music shows, but the “Radioactivity” public affairs program that became his calling card. On it, he welcomed elected officials, candidates, and scholars alongside activists, labor leaders and the occasional rabble rouser.

WMNF—where two past GMs unceremoniously fired him after disagreements and language the board of directors didn’t agree with—is also where Lorei was always encouraging other journalists.

“He took a chance on me and I don’t exaggerate when I say that it changed my life,” Justin Garcia, former staff writer at CL and current investigative reporter at the Tampa Bay Times, wrote on social media about the man who gave him his first byline. “But more importantly, over the years, we became friends.”

Garcia’s reporting has since ousted a police chief and is currently lighting a fire under the asses of Ron and Casey DeSantis as they try to distance themselves from their Hope Florida scandal. But what he remembers most is how deeply Lorei would listen to friends and colleagues alike.

“It was during those times that I could see how much he cared about the thoughts of others,” Garcia added. “Not just for his interviews, but because that’s the kind of person he was.”

Last Monday, in the hours after Lorei’s passing, Garcia was among a handful of news people gathered at Ybor City’s Dirty Shame, a regular watering hole for Lorei. Near him was Patrick Manteiga, third generation publisher of La Gaceta, which published Lorei’s final byline. Politics, the news, and stories everyone was working on were all up for discussion, but missing was Lorei’s presence and feedback.

“Right now, he’d be probing me for facts, asking me 100 questions and looking for an opinion on everything,” Manteiga said, admitting that his friend pretty much kept his own opinions close to the chest. “Rob didn’t want to really take sides, even in casual conversations, because he wanted that purity that a journalist is supposed to have. While I knew Rob’s heart, you didn’t necessarily know it by just listening to him.”

“Rob didn’t want to really take sides, even in casual conversations, because he wanted that purity that a journalist is supposed to have.”

For Mantiega, Lorei’s endless curiosity, mentorship, and his ability to maintain a neutral line of questioning while the temperature is turned all the way up, is something the Bay area media landscape will miss most.

In his comments to CL last March, Lorei said he was actually not relieved about getting to leave TV at a time when finding rational guests who’ve not become hyperpartisan is harder than ever.

“I still think we have to have those conversations,” Lorei said, alluding to a podcast conversation between Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom and conservative content king Charlie Kirk—two sides that normally would never come together.

“Honest people from both sides, with the facts, discussing the issue,” he added. “I think we need to do more of that.”

Challenging falsehoods, especially when they compromise democracy, is a journalist and moderator’s obligation to their audience, Lorei said. “I feel like I’m leaving just when things are getting really important and real serious,” he explained.

What Lorei didn’t fear leaving, however, was whatever earthbound shell he was in. In fact, he was more scared about young cancer patients without adequate healthcare than he was about the tumors growing inside of him.

“There’s people in much worse shape than I am,” Lorei said, opening the door, in a way, for the next part of his own story. “I think everybody’s going to pass away, and everybody’s got to go through this—and, you know, hopefully there’ll be something very interesting on the other side of whatever this life is.”

UPDATED: 08/22/25 4:44 p.m. Added Lynn Marvin Dingfelder’s middle name.

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This article appears in Aug 14-20, 2025.