The latest addition to the Tucson Sentinel newsroom is a familiar face. Natalie Robbins, our new Creative Community Solutions reporter, worked with the Sentinel as a summer fellow last year, tackling investigations, breaking news and feature stories.
This month, she’s rejoining the Sentinel’s team, ready to help our community learn more about itself as she digs into more desert dirt as a fulltime journalist.
Last summer, it was Robbins who led the Sentinel’s investigation into deaths at the Pima County Jail, revealing the exclusive story of a man who had died behind bars, and his family had not been told. Without her keen eye and dedicated work, they might still be unaware of his fate.
She also reported stories as varied as a profile of longtime KXCI radio host Petey Mequitey, Tucson police responding to encampments of homeless people, local roller derby skaters, local government activities and more.
In reporting on Creative Community Solutions, Robbins will provide Sentinel readers with stories on work by local governments, nonprofits and community members to lift others up, and showcase some of the compelling characters that make Tucson such a special place.
“I love journalism because no two days are the same,” Robbins said. “This profession has taken me to some bizarre and wonderful places I never thought I’d end up, and led me to connect with some incredible people who trust me to tell their stories with care.”
Her beat will include coverage of Southern Arizona’s deep tradition of volunteerism, iconoclastic thinkers, cross-cultural responses and more, with a grounding in the Sentinel’s focus on journalism that inspires residents to be meaningfully engaged with our community, promotes transparency and understanding, seeks solutions that empower, and holds the powerful accountable.
Solutions journalism is an exercise in “flipping the script” of traditional accountability journalism. Beyond pointing out what’s gone wrong, it looks at the proposals and projects that could be used to right inequities and grow resilience across our community. That doesn’t mean she’ll be a community cheerleader; she’ll provide an honest look that provides context and evidence.
“The Sentinel is doing work like no one else is in this city by holding powerful people and systems accountable,” she said. “I want to make this place better while celebrating what makes it great and I’m excited and humbled that the Sentinel has given me the opportunity to do so.”
Robbins just completed her masters degree in journalism at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York. Over the past two semesters, she continued investigating the jail situation as an academic intern for the Sentinel. She’ll continue covering that, do more reporting on housing and homelessness issues, work with the Sentinel’s team as part of the national Advancing Democracy fellowship covering elections, and more.
The reaction of the Sentinel staff when they learned she was returning to our newsroom in a permanent position was summed up by senior reporter Paul Ingram, who said, “I’m absolutely thrilled.”
“Within weeks of starting to work with us last year, she managed to tackle two important, difficult stories with canniness and care,” said Ingram. The experienced reporter and photographer, the winner of multiple journalism awards, pointed to Robbins’ “great profile on local hero Petey Mesquitey” as an example of the quality of her reporting outside hard news investigations.
Government & Political Impact reporter Jim Nintzel (formerly a reporter then editor at the Tucson Weekly over more than three decades) said “Natalie was a wonder to behold when she worked for the Sentinel last summer.”
Robbins “knocked it out of the park” with her reporting on the jail and other topics, and “she’s the type of early-career reporter who gives me hope in the future of this biz,” said Nintzel, who’s mentored dozens of talented journalists over the years.
Robbins is a Tucson native who graduated from the University of Arizona creative writing program,
then worked as a food service professional for several years before
taking up journalism.
She has reported extensively about food, restaurants and labor in
service industries. Her journalism interests also include digital
culture, housing issues and the arts and culture of the Borderlands.
Robbins comes to reporting about Tucson with a knowing eye. Her last name may ring a bell with many residents, but she’s not related to the University of Arizona president. Robbins — the daughter of longtime NPR correspondent Ted Robbins, a
familiar voice from his years on the air in Tucson — carries her
hometown with her everywhere: she has a “Tucson” tattoo on her ribcage.
“Tucson is my home forever,” Robbins said. “I love the food, the sunsets, the sounds of the birds chirping, and even the weather.”
“Once I got struck by lightning in the Casino Del Sol parking lot,”
she told us last year, explaining how much she loves her home town.
“I think Tucson’s the kind of place that leaves a mark on you forever
no matter how much time you spend here,” she said. “It’s a community
that deserves a powerful, accountable local media. That’s what the
Sentinel provides, and I’m very pleased to be part of it.”
“As a native Tucsonan myself, I’m always very pleased when we can hire
another journalist who grew up here,” said Sentinel Co-Publisher Maria
Coxon-Smith. “Natalie proved she can help us explain to the rest of the
world what a special place Tucson is, and her dogged reporting has been
very impressive.”
Before making a career as a manager at top restaurants in New York, Robbins worked at local
eateries such as Penca, Brooklyn Pizza, and MiAn in Downtown Tucson.
“Pizza-making,
waitressing, whiskey distilling… it’s made me love food and beverage
but also become fascinated with the politics of labor in this country,”
said the Tucson High graduate.
Her reporting has also been published by New York City News Service, and
she’s volunteered with PEN America as a writing mentor. She was the
maitre d’ of New York’s bustling fine-dining restaurant Great Jones Distilling Co., and earlier
worked on the Sonora Review and Worlds of Words at the University of
Arizona.
“Natalie’s deep love for this special place, along with her real-world skepticism and respectful approach to stories, make her an excellent addition to our newsroom,” said Sentinel Editor & Publisher Dylan Smith. “We’re thankful for the community support that allowed us to bring her aboard, and keep the Tucson Sentinel growing to tell even more important stories about our community.”
Robbins asks Southern Arizona residents with hot news tips to get in touch with her at [email protected]. And, coming home after spending years in New York City, she’s on the hunt for a solid used car. Please send her a note if you’ve got a good one for sale, and please help us welcome her to the Sentinel team.
Local News Initiative
Robbins’ work at the Sentinel is supported in part by the Local News Initiative at the Community Foundation for Southern Arizona.
“The initiative raises public awareness about the impact of the loss of local news in our community and the local solutions and opportunities to address it,” the organizers said.
The Sentinel was one of six news outlets chosen to receive funding from the initiative’s first grant round, this spring.
“People in many cities lament the decline of local news; in Southern Arizona, we’ve started to do something about it,” said Nancy Sharkey, chair of the program’s advisory board and a former University of Arizona professor who worked as a senior editor for the New York Times.
“Without local news, communities experience fading civic engagement,
eroding social bonds, surging misinformation, and dwindling governmental
accountability,” said Community Foundation President Jenny Flynn. “At CFSA, we envision a Southern Arizona that is a great
place to work, play, learn, create, innovate, invest, prosper, grow up,
grow families, grow businesses, and grow older. Every day, we work
side-by-side with donors and nonprofits to create places where all
community members are housed, fed, and have access to high-quality
education, healthcare, and economic opportunities. In other words, a
community that is thriving. And we understand you cannot have a thriving
community without local news.”
CFSA has announced the formation of Press Forward Southern Arizona, a local chapter of a national network of grantmakers seeking to bolster independent local news entrepreneurs like the Tucson Sentinel.
“Today, we’re experiencing a crisis in news and information,” the leaders of the national Press Forward coalition said. “As local newsrooms have disappeared across America, communities have
witnessed fading civic engagement, eroding social bonds, surging
misinformation, and dwindling governmental accountability.”
The Sentinel’s been at the forefront of responding to that crisis for the past 15 years — as one of the very first nonprofit news outlets to focus on local news anywhere in the United States, and leading the formation of LION Publishers as a national network of what are now about 500 local independent online news publishers.
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WHY SUPPORT LOCAL NEWS RIGHT NOW?
With the challenges we face as a community, and the heated partisan
rhetoric about which set of “facts” to believe, there’s never been a
more urgent need for independent, transparent and vigilant local
reporting. Give today to invest in the Tucson Sentinel’s
award-winning authentically local news for 2024 and beyond.
With the challenges we face as a
community, and the heated partisan rhetoric about which set of “facts”
to believe, there’s never been a more urgent need for independent, transparent and vigilant local reporting.
And sadly, chain media outlets run by companies headquartered thousands
of miles away have demonstrated that they’re not going to invest more
in our town. They’re just going to continue to cut.
You may not know that there are hundreds of journalists who are no longer reporting, right here in Tucson,
compared to just more than a decade ago. There are only about half as
many newspaper journalists across this country than there were 10 years ago. Layoffs
and shutdowns at chain newspapers and TV stations mean there are many
fewer watchdogs looking out for us. Across the U.S., there are tens of thousands of reporters who’ve been laid off — thousands already just this year alone. Even as our community and state growing, our press
is shrinking dramatically.
That’s why it’s even more important to have journalism here that’s invested in the success and future of this community. And that’s why the Sentinel has been working to rebuild local news as a truly local independent nonprofit news outlet for the past 15 years — we were one of the very first in the country to tackle this.
And it’s why we have big plans to continue to expand our reach, deepen our reporting, and increase the impact of authentically local news this year and next — but we need help from the community right now.
We know an informed community is important to you, and that you understand
the consequences when watchdogs lose their teeth and are muzzled. We
can’t make wise decisions as a community without having solid, relevant
information. That requires a healthy press — and that requires readers
who recognize the value we deliver in making everyone in this town a
little bit smarter.
We’re committed to making quality news accessible; we’ll never set up a paywall or charge for our site. But we rely on your support to bring you, your neighbors and everyone else in Southern Arizona independent news without the spin.
Thanks for reading, and for your support of quality, nonprofit, nonpartisan local reporting. Stay tuned for even more news about how the Sentinel is growing, with your help!
gracias,
Dylan Smith & Maria Coxon-Smith
Editor & Publisher | Co-Publisher
Tucson Sentinel