“I did a story about Donald Trump early in his career that I think got to the heart of how he operates,” Robbins mentioned in an interview with Metropolis College’s Craig Newmark Graduate Faculty of Journalism, the place he taught for a few years.
“I wrote about the workers he had hired — mostly undocumented laborers from Poland — to tear down the old Bonwit Teller building so he could build Trump Tower. They couldn’t understand why he was one of the richest men in New York and they weren’t getting paid. So they filed a lawsuit.”
Former New York Each day Information reporter Tom Robbins. (New York Each day Information)
A weathered clip of that story hung in his fourth-floor cubicle on the journalism college — and atop the house web page of his X account, which he realized to make use of as effectively as a loud guide typewriter.
Irrespective of how a lot the business modified, Robbins managed to adapt and keep related, reminding college students, co-workers and admiring journalists that no technological innovation replaces shoe leather-based and laborious work.
“Reporting is the best job you can have,” Robbins as soon as mentioned. “You get paid to talk to people. I look at my reporter’s credentials as a passport to talk to anyone, from the governor on down, and shine a light on corners that don’t usually get looked at.”
Former New York Each day Information reporter Tom Robbins in 1999. (Pat Carroll / New York Each day Information)
What some would label as “old school,” Robbins would describe as widespread sense. Take into account Robbins’ solutions to a Q&A he did on his craft:
How do you like to be pitched on tales?
Robbins: “Please and thank you.”
What instruments and software program do you employ to do your job?
Robbins: “Telephone.”
What’s your favourite social community?
Robbins: “Any good diner.”
“Tom was not just our Investigative Reporter in Residence since 2011,” mentioned Graciela Mochkofsky, dean of CUNY’s Graduate Faculty of Journalism. “He was the heart of our commitment to accountability journalism and a beloved mentor to countless students and alumni.”
The New York Each day Information was an enormous winner on the Deadline Membership’s annual awards dinner on April 30, 1999, on the Nationwide Arts Membership in Manhattan, New York. Pictured are Debby Krenek, Joe Calderone, Kevin Flynn, Tom Robbins (heart) and Raphael Sugarman. (Clarence Davis / New York Each day Information)
Former Each day Information reporter Tom Robbins in 2007. (Jesse Ward for New York Each day Information)
His sequence for The Marshall Venture on violence in New York prisons, produced in collaboration with The New York Instances, was named a 2016 Pulitzer Prize finalist for Investigative Reporting.
