New Investigative Reporting Fund Honors Late Journalist Tom Robbins – City Limits

The fund will support internships for CUNY student journalists at two nonprofit newsrooms, City Limits and THE CITY, where Tom Robbins served as editor at different chapters in his storied journalism career.

Before his death last year at the age of 76, journalist Tom Robbins spent decades investigating injustice and the misuse of power in New York City—and he trained countless up-and-coming reporters to do the same.

That legacy will continue under the Tom Robbins Investigative Reporting Fund. The new initiative will support summer internships for CUNY student journalists at two nonprofit newsrooms, City Limits and THE CITY, where Robbins served as editor during different chapters of his storied journalism career.

Interns will be selected from the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism, where Robbins spent 14 years as the Investigative Reporter in Residence. Tax-deductible contributions will provide interns with $10,000 stipends as they learn to produce the type of hard-hitting accountability journalism the fund’s namesake championed.

Learn more about the effort and how to make a donation here.

Robbins served as City Limits’ editor for five years beginning in 1980, having previously worked as a housing organizer on the Lower East Side. His decades-long career included roles at the New York Daily News, The Village Voice, the Marshall Project and THE CITY, where he led the newsroom’s investigations team.

“What makes reporting the greatest job in the world is that you get to talk to people and hear their stories,” Robbins said in a 2018 speech at City Limits’ 42nd anniversary gala, where he was honored with the newsroom’s Urban Journalist Award. “Writing for City Limits allowed me to be a witness to the battles everyday New Yorkers were waging in neighborhoods throughout the city.”

To reach the editor, contact [email protected]