As a Video Journalist at the NYT, I covered many stories in and around the New York City area. In general, these pieces were produced to accompany print stories that originated on either the Metro desk or the since-retired City Room blog.
Many people feel the tug between family and work. Tawana Gilbert left her job as an accounting supervisor and spent her retirement savings to help keep her teenage son from slipping into drug addiction.
Remember the summertime thrill of leaping off a diving board? Since the 1970s it has gotten harder to find in New York, as diving boards have steadily disappeared from the city’s pools.
With a lockout increasingly likely, the show may not actually go on this fall at the Metropolitan Opera.
Although I've worked predominantly in video (producing, shooting, editing, and voicing), I've also reported and written several print stories. I am particularly proud of the work I did with Pulitzer Prize-winning NYT journalist Mark Mazzetti on two exclusive, long-term investigative pieces concerning the use of mercenaries by the United Arab Emirates.
Enrique Mendez, 9, and his older brother, Cristian, 11, sorted through a plastic bin of toys in their New Jersey home. “I want to play with the wrestling guys,” said Enrique in a voice not quite his own, but pretty close.
Enrique has Down syndrome and speech apraxia, which means that he cannot speak, aside from a few grunts and “Ma” in the word “Mama.” He was able to speak to his brother, though, with an iPad loaded with the latest version of a widely used text-to-speech application, Proloquo2Go... READ ON NYTIMES.COM
A ride through Central Park in a horse-drawn carriage is one of New York City’s most storied attractions, the rhythmic clip-clop offering a respite from the hustle of everyday life.
But now this old-fashioned industry is facing unprecedented turmoil.
After campaigning for decades, animal rights advocates are gaining support for legislation that would ban those horse-drawn carriages, including endorsements from mayoral candidates and celebrities...READ ON NYTIMES.COM
ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates — Late one night last November, a plane carrying dozens of Colombian men touched down in this glittering seaside capital. Whisked through customs by an Emirati intelligence officer, the group boarded an unmarked bus and drove roughly 20 miles to a windswept military complex in the desert sand.
The Colombians had entered the United Arab Emirates posing as construction workers. In fact, they were soldiers for a secret American-led mercenary army being built by Erik Prince, the billionaire founder of Blackwater Worldwide, with $529 million from the oil-soaked sheikdom... READ ON NYTIMES.COM
Amye Walters tried not to look down. Her feet gripped a cable less than an inch thick that stretched 21 feet in front of her. Sweat dampened her long dark hair, black tank top and spandex pants.
The potential seven-foot fall to the ground did not scare her, but if she did not advance, she could imagine her father saying: “You should have gone all the way. I know you could have finished it.”...READ ON NYTIMES.COM
Over the last few years, I have started to focus my domestic reporting and producing on stories about minority communities and the ongoing challenges they face. I am particularly interested in how these communities are using 21st century tools (e.g., social networks and crowd-sourced video footage) to bring attention to the inequities of their experiences as American citizens in everyday life. Below are a few of the most salient pieces I've done on these issues.
A new warden at Cook County Jail in Chicago is looking for ways to treat an influx of mentally ill inmates. Her hiring comes at a time when many public mental health facilities have closed.
The 2016 race could be the most expensive in history, in part because of spending by “super PACs.” Legally, the groups cannot coordinate with candidates, but there is plenty of wiggle room.
Chicago’s City Council approved $5.5 million in reparations for a group of black men tortured by the police in the 1970s and ’80s under the watch of a notorious police commander, Jon Burge.
Producing succinct pieces concerning complex international news items was a continually inspiring challenge. The first and third pieces listed here are particularly germane as I produced, edited, and voiced each one. I also wrote the accompanying articles. The piece on the Pakistan school attack is a good example of how I frequently needed to work with multiple journalists, oftentimes spread around the globe, in order to produce stories focused on international events.
Before dawn on a freezing February morning, Amar Bakshi watched as a crane lifted a gold-colored shipping container off a flatbed truck outside the Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven, Conn. As diplomats consider a deal over Iran’s nuclear program, the shipping container is Mr. Bakshi’s attempt at restoring a relationship with that country.
Mr. Bakshi, a Yale graduate student and artistic entrepreneur, enlisted a team based in the United States and Iran to transform the shipping container into a communications portal. Equipped with videoconference applications, the portal allows people in the two countries to have conversations with one another...READ ON NYTIMES.COM
The Pakistani Taliban’s attack on a school in Peshawar in December signaled a significant change of tactics.
Along the border between Iraq and Turkey, guards are keeping a watchful eye out for oil smugglers. Oil from the Islamic State’s territories feeds an estimated $1 million a day into the organization’s coffers and is an essential part of its financing.
The smuggling routes are decades old, and corruption – in the oil fields, along the pipelines and across borders – provides significant economic incentives for many...READ ON NYTIMES.COM
While science and tech pieces were not my main area of focus while at the NYT, I have always loved the challenge of translating complex scientific concepts into understandable and engaging content (I am a graduate of the Science, Health & Environmental Reporting program at the New York University School of Journalism).
Test yourself with this video. The waterfall effect is a subtle optical illusion that sometimes happens to marathon fans. After someone cheers for runners for a long time, stationary objects may appear to move.
The Federal Communications Commission is to take a more active role in regulating the Internet as a public utility, which is expected to provoke court cases from major broadband providers.
Yuan Zhou, 14, softly crooned a pop chorus, but drew a blank look from her audience: a 14-foot robot named Girlzilla.
School was done for the day, and Yuan and her friends had gathered at the Lower East Side Girls Club on First Avenue to dress the mechanical teenager, which they built over the summer. Mounted on the base of an electric wheelchair bought on Craigslist for $200, and fashioned of steel piping, recycled electronics and fabric remnants, Girlzilla will parade through the Lower East Side on Saturday as part of the annual Howl! arts festival. “She’s one crazy diva,” Yuan said as she wove multicolored plastic streamers onto the robot’s head to simulate hair...READ ON NYTIMES.COM
Times Minute was a daily news digest produced by several members of the NYT video team that ran from approximately 2012-2014. For a portion of that time, I had primary responsibility for overseeing each component of the piece. This format allowed me to hone my skills at quickly turning around content no matter what sort of source material was (or too often, wasn't) available that day.
The career of the Kentucky senator expected to become Senate majority leader and his promises to change the Senate.
How some modern technologies — from airport screening to cellphones — may help in the fight to contain the Ebola virus.
The jihadi group’s origins and why United States forces attacked it alongside ISIS.
Emirates Secretly Sends Colombian Mercenaries to Yemen Fight
WASHINGTON — The United Arab Emirates has secretly dispatched hundreds of Colombian mercenaries to Yemen to fight in that country’s raging conflict, adding a volatile new element in a complex proxy war that has drawn in the United States and Iran.
It is the first combat deployment for a foreign army that the Emirates has quietly built in the desert over the past five years, according to several people currently or formerly involved with the project. The program was once managed by a private company connected to Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater Worldwide, but the people involved in the effort said that his role ended several years ago and that it has since been run by the Emirati military... READ ON NYTIMES.COM