He worked in Madrid, Paris and Rome before moving to The Observer, where he spent 12 years as reporter, feature writer, news editor, home affairs editor, and Middle East correspondent.

Robin joined the BBC in 1989 and has been presenting news programmes for both BBC World Service and BBC Radio 4 since then.

Robin travels frequently and has presented live programmes from Abuja, Amman, Baghdad, Berlin, Harare, Hong Kong, Islamabad, Johannesburg, Jerusalem, Kabul, Kosovo, Moscow, New York, Paris, Rome, Sarajevo, Tehran, Tokyo and Washington. He has won a number of awards, including the 1998 Sony Silver Award for Talk/News Broadcaster of the Year.

In addition to presenting Newshour, Robin also presents Talking Point. He has interviewed several major political leaders, including Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan, Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria, the British Prime Minister Tony Blair and the secretary-general of the United Nations, Kofi Annan.