Announcement from Director of Video Micah Gelman:
The Washington Post’s Video department announced several promotions and numerous new assignments. This re-organization is designed to better align video-driven journalism to the topic areas and beats throughout the newsroom and adapt to changing user behavior with a higher priority placed on breaking news, social and vertical video, and The Post’s groundbreaking visual enterprise storytelling.
As part of these changes, we are also streamlining job titles and creating combined teams of video journalists across the highest-impact coverage areas.
Nadine Ajaka, Tom LeGro and Lauren Saks are being promoted to Deputy Directors, Video, reporting to Micah Gelman.
Nadine joined The Washington Post in 2017 as our first (and only) YouTube editor, helping to grow the channel to more than 2 million subscribers. In 2020, Nadine launched our Visual Forensics team, as founding editor. The team made an instant impact, winning a duPont-Columbia award that same year, in collaboration with the Rapid Response Investigative team, for dissecting and analyzing the crackdown at Lafeyette Square before Trump’s photo-op. Nadine has fostered an approach to open-source investigations that is deeply collaborative as the team works across the newsroom to uncover and explain complicated stories through visuals.
Tom LeGro joined Video in 2013 as an editor on the breaking-news desk and in 2015 became the senior producer overseeing the International, Style and Technology teams. In 2017, he was part of the team of Post reporters awarded a Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the Senate candidacy of Roy Moore and the subsequent effort to discredit The Post’s reporting. Tom was promoted to executive producer in 2021, overseeing the Politics, National, International and Technology teams. Tom first worked for The Post from 2000 to 2006 in Sports, as a news aide and then later as a copy editor. Tom’s leadership has always reflected this steady progression through roles at The Post. He is always soliciting ideas from all contributors and weaving together the best of them toward landing journalism with impact. From 2006 to 2013, Tom was a reporter-producer for “PBS NewsHour,” covering arts and culture, before returning to us. In his new role, Tom will continue to champion collaboration across departments as he oversees video journalists assigned to National, Climate, GA, Metro, Style, and Technology.
Lauren Saks came to The Post in 2018 from PBS Digital Studios, where she oversaw content and audience development for a slate of digital original series aimed at growing audience. Lauren joined The Post in the role of Senior Producer on the Creative Video team, followed by the role of Executive Producer of Live Moments – producing live and short-form video that engages audiences on site, YouTube, Instagram and other social platforms pivoting to video. She has overseen coverage around two election cycles, two impeachments, one insurrection and much, much more – working with on-camera and production staff to develop and refine video products that bring new audiences to The Post. In her new role, she will continue to work with the live and on-camera teams, while adding the International and Politics teams to her portfolio. She will also continue to oversee our TikTok team of Dave Jorgenson, Carmella Boykin and Joseph Ferguson.
Additionally, there are several other key promotions in the department.
Zach Purser Brown is promoted to Executive Producer, Politics; Libby Casey becomes Senior Producer and Senior Anchor for Politics; Sarah Parnass becomes Senior Producer, Video Hub and International; and Neeti Upadhye becomes Senior Producer for Video Hub and National.
Zach joined The Post in 2019 as a politics video editor and was immediately thrust into covering the first impeachment of President Donald Trump. In 2022, he became Senior Producer on the Live Moments team, helping to oversee live coverage of a momentous series of world events, including the invasion of Ukraine, the 2022 midterms and Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral. Before moving to Washington, Zach covered British politics as a Westminster producer for Sky News in London and worked as a producer for BBC Newsnight. Zach will report to Lauren Saks.
As The Post’s senior news anchor, Libby has led live coverage for our newsroom since joining in 2016. She has been an unflappable narrator for two impeachments; dozens of presidential debates, inaugurations, primary and general election nights, congressional hearings; the death of Queen Elizabeth and the coronation of King Charles; and the return of U.S. crewed space flights. On Jan. 6, 2021, Libby was at the anchor desk for more than 12 hours, calmly guiding our viewers through an unprecedented attack on the Capitol by supporters of then-President Donald Trump. More than 5 million people watched our live election week coverage in 2020, and more than 3 million tuned in during the insurrection coverage. Prior to joining The Post, Libby was a national TV correspondent for Al Jazeera America, learned the ins-and-outs of Congress while at C-SPAN, and spent a decade as reporter for Alaska Public Radio. Libby will report to Zach.
Neeti joined the Post in 2022 as a Supervising Producer, overseeing video coverage in the evenings and setting visual priorities with the Seoul hub. Neeti played a key role in covering the invasion of Ukraine, the Seoul Halloween crowd crush, King Charles III’s coronation, the Lahaina fires, and the war in Gaza. She has also helped execute some of the newsroom’s most innovative projects, such as the melting of Robert E. Lee’s statue and how AI is helping ALS patients. Prior to joining The Post, Neeti was an award-winning documentary filmmaker in India. She also produced VR video for The New York Times and helped define NowThis’s social video strategy. She started her career as a crime reporter in Rochester, New York. Neeti will report to Tom LeGro.
Sarah has worked (and excelled) in nearly every role in the video department, since joining The Post over a decade ago from ABC News. Since 2019 she has supervised the breaking news video team, laying the foundation for a variety of initiatives— she hired The Post’s first breaking news reporter/video hybrid in the London hub, has brought the department close to 24/7 coverage, and led the team’s expansion into the world of vertical video. Her sound news judgment, deep knowledge of Post style and video systems, and clear communication skills allowed the team to produce essential video journalism during the relentless news cycle of the coronavirus pandemic and the 2020 election. Sarah started as an early morning video editor in 2013. In 2016, she moved to the politics desk for the campaign, winning the Edward R. Murrow award for editing of the video component of David Farenthold’s Access Hollywood tape exclusive. She is excited to rejoin International, where she had many high impact collaborations with correspondents while working with the department in 2017-2019. Among them, visualizing a ride with World Cup fans on the Trans-Siberian Railway, a tour of European prisons housing Islamic State fighters, and the global waste crisis as seen in six cities drowning in garbage. In her new role Sarah will report to Lauren Saks.
We are also thrilled to announce the promotion of Dan Mich to Head of Video Operations. Dan came to The Post from WDJT in Milwaukee in 2017 as a video technician. Dan has served in many roles for countless live and recorded productions. In 2021, he became the Video Operations Manager. He and his team have ensured smooth technical operations for the video team’s breaking news, enterprise, and live event coverage. David Bruns will join Dan’s team to head video planning and logistics. Randy Smith and Justin Scuiletti will continue reporting to Dan.
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As noted above, our re-organization also includes numerous new assignments.
Senior Executive Producer Nicki DeMarco will assume oversight of our Style, Climate and Tech teams, reporting to Tom LeGro. Allie Caren (Style), Jhaan Elker (Biz/Tech) and Mo Rodman (Tech), John Farrell(Climate) and Alice Li (Climate) will all report to Nicki along with Josh Carroll who will work across verticals. We are also excited to announce the promotion of Alice to Senior Video Journalist.
Senior Producer Jessica Koscielniak will assume oversight of Metro and some National topics, reporting to Tom LeGro. Hadley Green (Metro), Reshma Kirpalani (Education), Erin Patrick O’Connor (Immigration) and Joy Yi (National Security) will all report to Jessica along with Whitney Leaming, who will work across topics.
Joining Neeti Upadhye’s team will be HyoJung Kim (D.C. Hub), Julie Yoon, (Seoul Hub), Drea Cornejo (Health/Science), Amber Ferguson (GA) and Luis Velarde (Americas).
After a successful five-year run in Tech, we are delighted to announce that Jonathan Baran will join the Visual Forensics team full-time following temporary assignments covering the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the war between Israel and Hamas. Leila Barghouty is also joining the Visual Forensics team in a temporary capacity as supervising editor while Nadine is on leave. On The VF team, Senior Producer Elyse Samuels continues to lead the charge on investigations as do Senior Visual Forensics Reporters Sarah Cahlan, Meg Kelly and Joyce Lee and Visual Forensics Reporters Samuel Oakford, Imogen Piper and Nilo Tabrizy.
On Sarah Parnass’s team will be Jackson Barton (D.C. Hub), Naomi Schanen (London Hub), Jon Gerberg (International), Zoeann Murphy (International) and Joseph Snell (International).
We are organizing our disparate political coverage under three great leaders. Executive Producer Zach Purser Brown, Libby Casey and Peter Stevenson will manage a team of eight talented video journalists. Senior politics correspondent Rhonda Colvin will report directly to Zach. Ross Godwin, Anna Liss-Roy, Jorge Ribas, JM Rieger and Billy Tucker will report to Libby. Peter will oversee Adriana Usero, Michael Cadenhead and Blair Guild.
Osman Malik will continue as our Creative Director, directing the look and feel of all Washington Post video journalism in collaboration with the newsroom design department. His team of senior video graphics editors — Sarah Hashemi, Daron Taylor and Brian Monroe — are responsible for the daily creation of animation, motion graphics-led storytelling and the continual iteration of our visual look. Please congratulate Brian on his recent promotion to a senior position.
We are excited about the new assignments and organizational structure. Even more, we are excited for all the great journalism this team will be pursuing in 2024 and beyond.
