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Remember last May the Los Angeles Times said it would hire new reporters to cover immigration and SoCal's ethnic communities with a two-year grant from the Ford Foundation, rather than out of the paper's regular budget. Well, two staffers have now been added. The memo doesn't say whether they are indeed paid for by the Ford Foundation, or whether their jobs are of a temporary nature. Both reporters are experienced and familiar to SoCal — Anh Do was the Los Angeles editor of the Spot.Us journalism funding startup for awhile, as well as VP of a Vietnamese paper started by her father in Orange County. Cindy Chang was a Times intern and freelancer, a reporter at the Pasadena star-News, and more recently was one of the staffers at the New Orleans Times-Picayune when that paper announced a big shft away from print journalism.
Here's the memo.
To: The StaffFrom: Ashley Dunn, Assistant Managing Editor
We are pleased to announce that Anh Do and Cindy Chang, two veteran reporters, have joined the Metro staff to bolster our coverage of immigrant communities and immigration policy.
Anh comes to us from the Nguoi Viet Daily News, where she last served as vice president of the largest Vietnamese-language publication in the U.S. Before helping run the paper founded by her father, Anh worked as a reporter at the Dallas Morning News, Seattle Times and Orange County Register.
At the Register, Anh’s work included a project examining the path of the “Boy Monk” – a follower of the Dalai Lama who was the first foreigner accepted at a 600-year-old monastery in India. She also wrote a column on Asian affairs.
Anh, a graduate of USC who speaks Vietnamese and Spanish, will work in the Orange County bureau and report to Bureau Chief Steve Marble and Deputy Metro Editor Mary Ann Meek.
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Cindy joins us from the Times-Picayune in New Orleans, where she produced a powerful series exposing the financial deals that have made Louisiana the world’s prison capital. While in New Orleans, Cindy also covered public schools, federal courts, city government and – of course – the devastating effects of hurricanes.
Before landing in Louisiana, Cindy began her career here at The Times as an intern. She also has covered immigrant communities and San Gabriel Valley cities for the Pasadena Star-News, and worked as an L.A.-based stringer for the New York Times.
Cindy, who speaks Mandarin, holds a degree in law from New York University and a bachelor’s from Yale. She will report to State Editor Geoff Mohan and Deputy Metro Editor Mary Ann Meek.
In 2005, Chang was threatened after reporting on Chinese students at San Marino High school for the Star-News.
Also, the Morning Buzz this morning noted the promotion of Megan Garvey to assistant managing editor for digital.
