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Object Description
Interview no. | R-0777 |
Restrictions | No restrictions. Open to research. |
Project | R.43. Special Research Projects: NewStories |
Project description | NewStories, begun in 2012, is an ongoing project of the University of North Carolina School of Media and Journalism. Interviews are conducted by students enrolled in media history coursework under the direction of Dr. Barbara Friedman. The series explores the life experiences of North Carolina media workers, whose career fields include print and broadcast news, photojournalism, web journalism, public relations, marketing, advertising and education. Included is a series of interviews with inductees of the North Carolina Halls of Fame. The interviews are biographical in nature, yet some concentrate on particular events or periods within the lifetime of the respondent. |
Date | 3 March 2015 |
Interviewee | Robinson, John. |
Interviewee occupation | Journalists |
Interviewee DOB | Undisclosed |
Interviewee ethnicity | Whites |
Interviewer | Mckenzie, D’chante. |
Abstract | As editor of the Greensboro News & Record for 27 years, John Robinson has experienced the apex and decline of the newspaper industry. Born in Virginia and raised in Oklahoma, Robinson moved to Raleigh, N.C., at age 16. Robinson got into the newspaper business haphazardly. He graduated from Saint Andrews College with the intent to study law, and decided that in order to be a more competitive applicant, he needed to work for a couple of years. He tried teaching junior high school students, but hated it. He went on to work in construction, but that wasn't for him, either. After a conversation with his mother, he decided to try a field in which he could write: the newspaper business. As editor of the News & Record, Robinson confronted the challenges of running a newspaper in a period of significant industry change. Among other decisions, he had to make difficult choices about staff reductions. During the recession, 17 full-time staffers were laid off from the News and Record. Robinson was responsible for notifying each of them that they would be out of work. Laying off co-workers and friends was among Robinson's most difficult experiences and one of the reasons why he left the News & Record in 2011. Robinson was one of the first newsroom leaders to begin blogging. Robinson still blogs on “Media, Disrupted,” for which he critiques North Carolina papers and opines about improvements. And although teaching middle school didn't appeal to him, Robinson now teaches reporting classes at the University of North Carolina School of Journalism and Mass Communication. |
Citation | Interview with John Robinson by D’chante Mckenzie, 3 March 2015 R-0777, in the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. |
Description
Interview no. | R0777_Audio |