Award-winning work
2011 AAJA/Gannett Foundation Award for Digital Innovation in Watchdog Journalism. The Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA), in partnership with the Gannett Foundation, recognizes groundbreaking work that creatively uses digital tools in the role of being the community's watchdog.
- The award recognized a story and accompanying Tableau data viz published by The Seattle Times that documented how the nation's largest mortgage servicers in Treasury's Making Home Affordable program failed to comply with guidelines on loan modifications, and how Treasury did little to hold them accountable.
First place, Team Report, 2010 National Association of Real Estate Editors Journalism Awards.
First place, Business reporting, 2010 Pacific Northwest Excellence in Journalism Awards, Society of Professional Journalists.
- These two awards recognized an investigative project I worked on with ProPublica's Jennifer LaFleur and Seattle Times videographer Genevieve Alvarez. The stories revealed the dimensions of the nation's foreclosure crisis and the lack of complete public data on foreclosures. The online package included a video, an interactive data visualization, and a custom database we created on some 1,200 foreclosure filings.
First place, Personalities reporting, 2010 Pacific Northwest Excellence in Journalism Awards, Society of Professional Journalists.
- The award recognized an obituary on Harvey McGarrah, a disheveled, mysterious grouch whom Pike Place Market vendors counted on to push their carts in and out of the market's catacombs. Authorities were stunned by what they found in Harvey's belongings. It was great working with my colleague and talented feature writer Marc Ramirez on this story.
Staff, 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Reporting. The newsroom deployed every tool at its disposal -- and some experimental ones like Dipity, Google Wave and social media -- to cover the Nov. 29, 2009 murder of four police officers - the worst act of violence against law enforcement in state history - and manhunt for gunman Maurice Clemmons. I contributed tweets and video from the stakeout and a key interview with one relative that topped a profile of Clemmons.
Second place, Arts/Entertainment/Lifestyle, Online adaptation of print story, 2009 Northwest Excellence in Journalism Awards, Society of Professional Journalists. The award was presented for two stories published in The Seattle Times: "Christmas trees: Only 15 chopping days left," and "Cadillac of worms rules as an urban composter."
First place, Online Special Report, 2005 Northwest Excellence in Journalism Awards, Society of Professional Journalists. The award recognized an innovative multi-media presentation marking the 50th anniversary of the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education ruling. "Decades of effort fail to close gap in student achievement," Seattle Times, A1, May 9, 2004. .
"Anthrax: Ground Zero," series of stories in The Palm Beach Post. As The Post's medical reporter, Sanjay Bhatt led the staff's award-winning coverage of the nation's first confirmed anthrax case in the bioterrorist attack. The awards:
- Palm Beach Post staff, First Place, 2002 Green Eyeshade Excellence in Journalism Award, Society of Professional Journalists.
- First Place, War on Terrorism Coverage, Florida Press Club.
- Second Place, Outstanding Story on Any Subject, South Asian Journalism Association Awards.
Honors
Ranked #39 in the "Top 50 Coolest Desis of 2009" by DesiClub.com, a global web portal for the South Asian diaspora.
AAJA-Knowledge @ Wharton Awards for Business Journalism, 2009. Sponsored by the South Asian Journalists Association, the Wharton Business School at the University of Pennsylvania and the Knowledge@Wharton online business journal, the award covers tuition for the prestigious Wharton Seminars at the university.
Chapter of the Year, 2008. At its 2008 national convention in Chicago, The Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA) honored the Seattle chapter for its successful campaign to establish a $100,000 scholarship endowment for the Northwest Journalists of Color. Read all about it.
Knight Multimedia Fellow, University of California-Berkeley, May 2008. One of 20 mid-career journalists chosen for a competitive week-long multimedia workshop.
Outstanding Service Award, Association of Health Care Journalists, 2006. The leading professional society for journalists covering health and health care recognized me for four years of service and leading major changes across the organization, including fiscal accountability, a new executive director and securing commitments from major funders for a national conference in Houston.
Executive Leadership Program, Asian American Journalists Association, 2006. Selected for a competitive one-week training program for mid-career journalists.
Speaker, exPRESSion media conference, Convergence Institute of Media, Management & Information Technology Studies, 2005. For about an hour, I spoke to about 400 student and professional journalists in Bangalore about my experiences working in U.S. media and answered questions.
Knight Journalism Fellow, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2002. One of six journalists chosen for a four-month fellowship in public health. The fellowship included a one-month stint in Portland at the Oregon Department of Public Health.
