DeRogatis has written articles for magazines such as Rolling Stone, Spin, Guitar World, Matter[2] and Modern Drummer, and for 15 years was the pop music critic for the Chicago Sun-Times.

In 1985, at the start of his senior year, DeRogatis began writing full time for the Jersey Journal, spending two nights a week on news stories and three days on wedding and church announcements.

[1] While at Rolling Stone magazine, he was fired after writing a negative review of Hootie & the Blowfish's album Fairweather Johnson.

DeRogatis plays drums in the punk rock band Vortis;[9] its most recent album (Spring 2019) is This Machine Kills Fascists on Cavetone Records.

Adams later commented that DeRogatis shouldn't have made the recording public, and that leaving the message in the first place was a mistake since it empowered the critic.

[13][14] DeRogatis and Abdon Pallasch reported for the Chicago Sun-Times in December 2000 that court records and interviews alleged that musician R. Kelly had used his position of fame and influence to meet and have sex with underage girls.

[17] On July 17, 2017, DeRogatis reported for BuzzFeed News that Kelly had been accused by three sets of parents of holding their daughters in an "abusive cult".