Tom Robbins, the Newmark J-School’s longtime Investigative Reporter in Residence, liked to say that it’s a journalist’s job to be skeptical, but never cynical.
Robbins lived up to those words and combined them with an unerring spirit of generosity as he served the J-School community nearly up until the day of his death at age 76, following a long illness.
Robbins arrived at the J-School in 2011, well into a storied career as a top reporter and columnist at the New York Daily News and The Village Voice, after starting at City Limits in 1980 following stints as a cabbie and community organizer.
Operating from a fourth-floor cubicle brimming with books, documents and old news clippings — including his 1990 Daily News story detailing how Donald Trump used undocumented demolition workers from Poland to clear the site for what became Trump Tower — Robbins brought the same passion to training journalists as he had to chasing mobsters and crooked politicians.
His mentorship helped support exceptional student-produced work, including: an investigation of a Bronx landlord for City Limits; a WNYC series tracking the impact of Trump’s first term on New York; and compelling profiles of incarcerated people seeking clemency published in Gothamist and THE CITY.
Robbins extended his own groundbreaking reporting throughout his tenure at the J-School. He was part of a New York Times-Marshall Project series on violence in New York prisons that earned a 2016 Pulitzer Prize finalist slot and a Hillman Prize.
His 2012 New York Times Magazine piece on Judith Clark, a ’60s activist who took part in the notorious 1981 Brinks robbery that left two police officers and an armored-car guard dead, is credited by some — blamed by others — for helping lead to her 2019 release. In 2023, he joined the staff of THE CITY, where he contributed to a series of award-winning stories that revealed straw donors to Eric Adams’ mayoral campaign.
Beyond his reporting and WBAI radio show, Robbins was a vibrant part of life at the J-School. He led events — bringing legendary columnist Jimmy Breslin to the school in 2011, and more recently hosting a conversation with NY1’s Errol Louis and WNYC’s Brigid Bergin dissecting travails at City Hall.
Even in his last semester, Robbins visited classes and the J-School’s new Investigative Reporters and Editors chapter to deliver guest lessons, including a session on filing effective Freedom of Information Law requests. He also contributed reporting tips to a newsletter sent to local reporting students, filing his final dispatch a little over a week before his death.
Robbins would have dismissed comparison to journalism luminaries like Breslin or his late friend and Village Voice colleague Wayne Barrett. But we at the J-School knew we were lucky to be working with the dean of investigative reporters in New York City.
“I love New York, and I love the job of being a reporter. I also love sharing my knowledge with students at the J-School,” Robbins said in a 2023 interview. “I see the two going hand in hand. Reporting is the best job you can have. 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.”
Tom’s brilliance, generosity, and commitment to accountability journalism will be deeply missed. Our thoughts are with Robbins’ family, friends, and the many students and colleagues he impacted through his dedication to the essential work of journalism.