Hi, I’m Vignesh.

I am a growth editor at Apple News, working on editorial data analytics for Apple’s popular news app that features the world’s best journalism from trusted sources, curated by human editors and personalized to reader interests. I am also co-founder of Red, White and Brown Media (subscribe to the Substack newsletter), focused on building media representation and sharing South Asian American stories. I recently hosted more than 25 live conversations with Asian American newsmakers on Twitter Spaces and Instagram Live.

In 2022, I was a multiplatform editor at The Washington Post, where I worked on the curation and platforms team, focused on the Post’s mobile app and mobile web experience.

In 2021, I juggled multiple hats as a deputy news editor for PBS NewsHour’s digital platforms, a weekend editor for Vox, an audience engagement editor for the Nieman Foundation for Journalism/Nieman Reports/Nieman Storyboard at Harvard and a social media producer for FiveThirtyEight at ABC News/Disney.

In 2020, I helped build editorial strategy as the senior editor at The Juggernaut, a subscription-based South Asian diaspora news startup. Before that, I was a story producer at ProPublica, managing editor of Stanford’s in-house news startup Peninsula Press (partnered with SFGate and KQED in San Francisco), a founding member of the Stanford Computational Journalism Lab, and I reported at Mashable and NBC News Digital.

I previously contributed toward the Stanford Open Policing Project, an interdisciplinary effort to help researchers, journalists and policymakers investigate traffic stops and improve interactions between police and the public.

In 2018, I was selected as an Online News Association MJ Bear Fellow — one of three “journalists expanding the boundaries of digital news.”

I have my master’s degree in journalism from Stanford University, where I explored digital media entrepreneurship, visual storytelling, design thinking projects and data journalism. Born and brought up in Colorado, I completed my bachelor’s degree in broadcast news journalism from the University of Colorado at Boulder, where I currently serve as a Professional Journalism Advisory Board Member.

Early in my career, I was once an intern on NBC’s TODAY show, where my “morning person” tendencies helped, as well as for “Food Network Challenge,” where I learned no one really ate the cakes(!) after the desserts sat under studio lights all day.

I am currently based in Denver. I love dogs, including my puppy Laddoo.

Newsroom experience at:

Below are select clips on:

Race, Culture and Politics

• “When Indian matchmaking happens off-screen” (The Washington Post)
• Twitter Spaces/Instagram Live 2022 interview series with Asian American newsmakers (Red, White and Brown)
• “Millions depend on private messaging apps to keep in touch. They’re ripe with misinformation.” (PBS NewsHour)
• “How to Celebrate Diwali this Year” (5280 Magazine)
• “Denver’s Havana Street Gains Influx of New Asian-Owned Food Businesses” (5280 Magazine)
• “Post-9/11 surveillance has left a generation of Muslim Americans in a shadow of distrust and fear” (PBS NewsHour)
• “How American Muslims have been represented in popular culture post-9/11” (PBS NewsHour)
• “A meditation of longing and loss set in post-war Sri Lanka” (Electric Literature)
• “Denver used to be home to the world’s largest community of Mongolian immigrants” (5280 Magazine)
• “Love and critique: A conversation with Sanjena Sathian about ‘Gold Diggers’” (Los Angeles Review of Books)
• “How the Sikh community’s experiences with hate crimes shows why data collection is so important” (PBS NewsHour)
• “Indian Americans Face A Pandemic Crisis Raging On Thousands Of Miles Away” (Colorado Public Radio) Listen to audio
• “Asian-owned businesses say they’re reeling from hate and violence” (PBS NewsHour)
• “Asian Americans are the fastest growing group in the U.S.” (PBS NewsHour)
• “Colorado’s Asian-American Communities Haven’t Been Immune to Pandemic-Related Racism” (5280 Magazine)
• “What you can do to fight violence and racism against Asian Americans” (PBS NewsHour)
• “How to address the surge of anti-Asian hate crimes” (PBS NewsHour)
• “‘Words matter’ as Asian American leaders urge action against hate crimes” (PBS NewsHour)
• “Parvesh Cheena has starred in television shows that have defined an era” (Chicago Reader)
• “The data behind 9 big challenges facing Biden” (PBS NewsHour)
• “Tackling anti-Blackness in South Asian communities” (Anti-Racism Daily)
• “South Asian and Chinese New Yorkers among the hardest hit by COVID-19” (NBC News/NBC Asian America)
• “Energized By Kamala Harris’ Win, South Asians Hope To Increase Political Representation” (Colorado Public Radio) Listen to audio
• “South Asian Americans face disproportionately higher risks of heart disease” (The Washington Post, Kaiser Health News)
• “Op-ed: What Kamala Harris’ historic win means to Indian Americans” (San Francisco Chronicle)
• “A Brown Tuesday: A look at all-things South Asian American during Election 2020” (Red, White and Brown)
• “Dive Into Denver Metro’s South Indian Food Scene” (5280 Magazine)
• “Biden Tries to Woo Indian American Voters — Did Trump Get There First?” (The Juggernaut)
• “Counting South Asian American in the 2020 Census” (The Juggernaut)
• “American Newsrooms Are Still Too White” (The Juggernaut)
• “Why Asian Pacific American Heritage Month Matters” (The Juggernaut)
• “20 questions in 20 days” audience engagement campaign on Instagram (Red, White and Brown)
• “Why Indian Cuisine Is Having a Fast-Casual Moment Right Now” (Eater)
• “Karan Soni, That Guy From the AT&T Commercials Takes the Silver Screen” (OZY)
• “Pronouncing My Own Name, Correctly” (Red, White and Brown)
• “When Policing And Race Cross Paths In Silicon Valley” (NPR Code Switch)
• “Hasan Minhaj Is the Next Big Brown King of Comedy” (Movie Time Guru)
• Design and production for “The Legend of A-N-N-A: Revisiting an American Town Where Black People Weren’t Welcome After Dark” (ProPublica)
• “Are Traffic Stops Prone to Racial Bias?” (The Marshall Project)
• “A large-scale analysis of racial disparities in police stops across the United States” (Stanford/academic journals)
• Nationwide Public Records Requests and Traffic Stops Data Collection (Stanford Open Policing Project)

Local and National News

• “During in-flight emergencies, sometimes airlines’ medical kits fall short” (Fortune, Kaiser Health News)
• “For Colorado’s teacher of the year, music education goes beyond learning an instrument” (Colorado Public Radio)
• “Colorado’s election system is the ‘gold standard’ nationally” (Colorado News Collaborative - COLab)
• “Partisan beliefs influence views on election security in Colorado” (Colorado News Collaborative - COLab)
• “As politics infects public health, private companies profit” (CNN, Kaiser Health News)
• “The kindergarten exodus during the pandemic” (The New York Times)
• “Denver art installation doubles as skate park and stormwater mitigation” (Next City)
• “Why ransomware attacks are on the rise — and what can be done to stop them” (PBS NewsHour)
• “How COVID-19 changed public transportation” (PBS NewsHour)
• “Why there are gas shortages on the East Coast” (PBS NewsHour)
• “Ranchers Struggle with Access to Mental Health Services as COVID Puts Stress on Rural Communities” (People, Kaiser Health News)
• “Colorado Teachers Worry About How They’ll Get The COVID Vaccine” (Colorado Public Radio) Listen to audio
• “Big Tobacco stands down as Colorado and Oregon hike cigarette taxes” (Fortune Magazine, Kaiser Health News)
• “New Year, New Patchwork Of Policies Across Colorado School Districts” (Colorado Public Radio) Listen to audio
• “How a 41-Year-Old Greek Diner Is Weathering the Pandemic” (5280 Magazine)
• “Teachers Grapple With Doing Their Jobs Facing A Patchwork Of Coronavirus Policies” (Colorado Public Radio) Listen to audio
• “Educators Struggle With How To Best Support Their Students’ Learning And Mental Health” (Colorado Public Radio) Listen to audio
• “When It Comes Time To Reopen Classrooms, This Working Group Hopes To Help It Go Smoothly” (Colorado Public Radio) Listen to audio
• “Denver Public Schools Shifts to Remote Learning” (Denverite) Listen to audio
• “Bicycle Retailers Are Seeing Unprecedented Sales During Pandemic” (The Colorado Sun)
• “The Coronavirus Detoured My Childhood Dream” (The Colorado Sun)
• “Getting to Know Illinois — And You” (ProPublica)
• “Every Day, a Child is Held Beyond Medical Necessity in Illinois” (ProPublica)
• Peninsula Press local news website 2015 CMS and design overhaul (Peninsula Press/Stanford)

Journalism Ecosystem and News Industry

• “How New Jersey newsrooms banded together to sell ads” (The Lenfest Institute for Journalism)
• “How nonprofit newsrooms translate stories to better reach audiences” (Institute for Nonprofit News)
• “How three women journalist leaders channeled legacy newsroom experiences into creating healthier nonprofit organizations” (Institute for Nonprofit News)
• “We asked journalism leaders: How does your newsroom serve communities of color?” (Institute for Nonprofit News)
• “COVID-19 story recipe: Analyze school enrollment changes in the districts you cover” (Source/OpenNews)
• “How to host an intern: Advice from nonprofit news leaders” (Institute for Nonprofit News)
• “How nonprofit newsrooms track sources to ensure coverage reflects community” (Institute for Nonprofit News)
• “How Bay City News raised major donor revenue in a time of hardship” (Institute for Nonprofit News)
• “Service journalism during a year of crisis” (Institute for Nonprofit News)
• “The Brown Institute’s Local News Lab is developing ‘smart paywalls’ for local newsrooms” (Nieman Lab)
• “How California newsrooms teamed up to gather pandemic data” (Source/OpenNews)
• “How Do You Identify Fake News?” (ProPublica)
• “You’re Entitled to Government Transparency” (ProPublica)
• “Student Reporters Can Serve Their Communities When Administrators Aren’t in the Way” (ProPublica)
• Stanford Journalism 2015 branding and design overhaul (Stanford)

Essays and Op-Eds

• “How taking risks at the worst time was the best thing I did” (The Wall Street Journal)
• “Ambulu Paati was not your typical South Indian grandma. And we loved her for that.” (Red, White and Brown)
• “Op-ed: What Kamala Harris’ historic win means to Indian Americans” (San Francisco Chronicle)
• “Pronouncing my own name — correctly” (Red, White and Brown)

Video Production and Editing

• “Sweet Golden Laddoo” YouTube channel
• Data journalism program informational video (Stanford)
• 125 years of journalism alumni video (Stanford)
• School of Engineering’s Jackrabbot, the social robot (Stanford)
• Coverage of media startup accelerator Matter (Knight Foundation)
• Demo Reel

• “In Conversation: The real people behind the news” (University of Colorado CMCI Now Magazine)
• “A year and a half in, The Juggernaut challenges mainstream media’s coverage of South Asians” (Nieman Lab)
• “15 Successful Journalists Reveal Their Top 3 Productivity Tools” (Distill.io)
• “Computer Scientists Think They Have The Answer To Police Misconduct” (ThinkProgress)
• “Traffic Stop Data Probed” (Stanford Magazine)
• “Weddings Without Borders” (The Hindu)
• “Fitbit’s Challenge: Move From ‘Nice-to-Have’ to ‘Need-to-Have’” (The Wall Street Journal)
• “Can Virtual Reality Make You More Empathetic?” (NPR “All Things Considered”)
• “Meet Web Producer Vignesh Ramachandran” (ProPublica)
• “Knight News Challenge Winners Focus on Data and Transparency” (Nieman Lab)

• “How COVID-19 coverage impacted discrimination towards Asian communities” (Colorado Media Project 2022 — Denver)
• “Using Twitter to build and engage live audiences” (AAJA 2022 — Los Angeles)
• “How can we make news nerd freelance work better for everyone?” (OpenNews’ SRCCON 2022 — virtual)
• “Making remote work successful in a (hopefully soon) post-COVID world” (OpenNews’ SRCCON 2021 — virtual)
• Reporting debrief on “Colorado Matters” live radio show with Ryan Warner (Colorado Public Radio — Denver)
• “The Conversation” webinar discussion about anti-Asian American hate crimes (communications professionals — virtual)
• “Adventures of a Young Reporter” book event with author Peter Copeland and ProPublica’s Melissa Sanchez (Columbia College — Chicago)
• ProPublica’s Diversity Mentorship Program co-hosting with Hannah Birch (ONA 2019 — New Orleans)
• “Proud to be a Platypus: Finding Your Own Innovative Role in News” with Hannah Birch (OpenNews’ SRCCON 2019 — Minneapolis)
• Online News Association MJ Bear Fellowship presentation on visual storytelling (ONA 2018 — Austin)

• First place award for health feature, Top of the Rockies contest, 2021 (SPJ — Society of Professional Journalists)
• MJ Bear Fellow, 2018 (ONA — Online News Association)