Robin Pogrebin ‘83 on the Importance of Cultural and Investigative Reporting
“Journalism gave me license to ask a lot of questions and pursue my curiosity,” Robin Pogrebin explains in an interview with The Riverdale Review staff. While Pogrebin has been a professional journalist since the 1980s with the New York Times and ABC News, she attributes her initial interest in the press to her time on Riverdale’s very own campus.
Starting in her ninth-grade year in 1979, Pogrebin was active in the Riverdale community, engaging in many theatrical productions, playing tennis, and writing for The Riverdale Review. On The Review, Pogrebin married her passion for the performing and visual arts with an interest in writing, reporting on numerous school plays and Riverdale art competitions. After a rigorous summer program at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism following her junior year, Pogrebin became a Co-Editor-in-Chief in 1983.
Pogrebin continued to pursue journalism as an English major at Yale University, where she wrote feature stories for The Yale Daily News. The News eventually gave her a column, called “Out of the Blue,” which Pogrebin says enabled her to move beyond “the realm of objective reporting to assert [her] own views.”
While at Yale, Pogrebin did a summer internship at New York Magazine and worked as a stringer for The Hartford Courant. In her senior year, Pogrebin was recruited to the New York Times, where she worked in the clerk program, an opportunity where exceptional college students perform backend tasks for the publication and sometimes write articles without receiving credit. Interns in the clerk program all vie for a chance to “earn a byline,” which reflects the competitive nature of the journalism field in New York City. Nevertheless, Pogrebin cherishes these experiences as they allowed her to gain “on-the-job training” while also developing important personal and professional relationships with people in the industry. These relationships are crucial because “a lot of success in the profession is who you know and people being able to connect you to others,” she says.
After a brief stint as an ABC associate producer for anchor Peter Jennings’s documentary unit, Pogrebin returned to print journalism and the New York Times in 1995. After covering city news for the Metro desk and the media industry for the Business section, Pogrebin joined the Culture desk, where she covers cultural institutions, architecture, and the art world. Through her work, Pogrebin pushes back against the notion that the arts are a “softer side of the news” or less significant than political journalism. She explains that the arts often intersect with pressing social issues such as freedom of expression, diversity, and responsible governance. Furthermore, she appreciates how art encourages creativity and often shapes popular culture. “Without the arts, our world would be less multidimensional,” she says.
Outside of The Times, Pogrebin has written numerous freelance articles for magazines such as Vogue, Departures, and Town & Country. She has also taught journalism at Columbia University and the School of Visual Arts as well as in mini-courses at Riverdale. Additionally, with her Times colleague Kate Kelly, Pogrebin wrote a book called The Education of Brett Kavanaugh: an Investigation, which explored the personal and professional story of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh as well as his controversial confirmation. Since Pogrebin was in the same Yale class as Kavanaugh, she had access to their yearbook and directory that offered her intimate insight into the justice’s story.
Her career aside, Pogrebin says that finding a work-life balance is crucial, especially in New York City, which often promotes a “no-days-off mentality.” She has been a fully involved parent of two children, now in their 20s, and continues to pursue hobbies including yoga and studying Italian. While balancing work and parenting can be overwhelming, she ultimately believes that “each role enriched the other.”
As a professional journalist since the 1980s, Pogrebin is well aware of the sexism that persists within the field. “Men continue to hold leadership roles and dominate meetings,” she shares. However, growing up in a feminist household with her mother, Letty Cottin Pogrebin, a founder of Ms. Magazine, Pogrebin has tried to assert herself and call out inequity.
In her work, she has made a point of highlighting female artists and artists of color, whose work has been marginalized and overlooked. She has worked on several #metoo stories, which are among her most meaningful in that they helped bring about tangible change. Specifically, her articles forced many prominent businessmen who committed sexual violence, such as former director of New York City Ballet Peter Martins, to step down from their positions of power. Additionally, in her recent article, “A Modern Take on the Hudson River School Tradition,” Pogrebin highlighted Cy Gavin and his artistic exploration of the land that has both empowered and inspired him as a Black man. Pogrebin appreciates how his art and story “brought much larger issues to the fore,” namely persisting institutional racism and the role of art in Black Lives Matter activism.
To conclude the interview, Pogrebin left with a call to action for Riverdale students. She not only wants to raise awareness of the importance of supporting local print journalism, a dying, underfunded industry, but also the need for students to interrogate the outlets where they receive news. “Try to call out the sources that are not reliable and highlight those that are taking the time to fact check and be responsible,” she advises while understanding that subscriptions for top-tier publications can be a barrier. She claims that getting information from reputable news outlets can mitigate the corrosive effects of misinformation and disinformation in America today. Pogrebin also leaves Riverdale students, as they consider future careers, with advice: “Follow your passion and write about topics that interest you, so that you wake up every day and are looking forward to the work you do. This can apply in any field, not just journalism.”
