Kimi Robinson

About

I have covered entertainment news for the USA Today network since 2019. In summer 2023, I transitioned from covering a mix of local and national-level stories in Phoenix to reporting on national trending and breaking entertainment news from Los Angeles for USA Today.In my beat, my coverage area ranges from celebrities' legal matters to obituaries, reality TV interviews, red carpet premieres and sit-downs with A-list stars.While at the USA TODAY network's Arizona Republic newspaper, my coverage spanned celebrity interviews, trending pop culture stories, features about trailblazing people, film and TV criticism, and reality TV recaps. In my role, I honed my SEO and headline-writing expertise, pitched stories that became top page-view earners across the network, and carved out a new beat with my pop culture savvy and passion for following internet culture and social media trends.Previously, I was a bilingual reporter for the Los Angeles bureau of Kyodo News, Japan's largest news agency. I wrote feature and news stories in English about Asian American issues and popculture for the international newswire and also used my astute news judgment to influence the Japanese correspondent's articles, which were published in hundreds of newspapers across Japan.As a correspondent, I traveled as needed to cover major breaking news events and report on feature stories across the Western U.S.In my decade as a journalist, my mission has been to shine a light on historically underrepresented groups in my reporting and thoughtfully share their stories. My work has been recognized by the Associated Collegiate Press (as a 2016 finalist for news story of the year) and published in outlets such as USA Today, NBC News, The Japan Times, The Hollywood Reporter and South China Morning Post. Select clips can be found below and on my website.