Issue:
June 2025 | Obituary
The FCCJ says farewell to Gwen Robinson
Gwen Robinson, who passed away aged 65 on March 29, was the sort of old-school FCCJ journalist who knew how to throw a party and seemed to know everybody.
Many of her large coterie of friends and colleagues have gone into print since to express their admiration for her, as a person and a reporter.
Journalism has lost “one of the truly special ones”, said Tyler Brûlé, editorial director of Monocle magazine, in one of several moving eulogies. “Thank you, Gwen, for being a teacher, confidante, collaborator and drinking date. Love you.”
On April 25, the FCCJ gave Gwen its own sendoff with a night of yarns and reminiscences from a remarkable career that spanned more than four decades and included postings in Tokyo, Jakarta, Washington and Bangkok.
The tributes were led by Gwen’s brother, Mark, who remembered his brilliant and sometimes ornery sibling as they grew up in turbulent circumstances in Australia.
Their father, Peter Robinson, was a correspondent for the Australian Financial Review who had met their mother, Haruko Morita, also a journalist, while based in Tokyo in the 1950s.
Mark said their experiences - never quite fitting into Japan or Australia, their home from 1964 and where they were sometimes subjected to racist taunts – had shaped Gwen’s rebellious instincts. Their mother tried and failed to control her, he recalled. It was the perfect early resume for a journalist.
Richard Lloyd Parry, Asia editor of the Times and an old friend of Gwen’s, said her circle of friends was so wide that he had to accept he could only “share her time, never have exclusive access to it”.
