Kanyakrit “Yu” Vongkiatkajorn has joined The Washington Post’s Metro desk as an assignment editor.  According to The Post, she brings “an audience-first focus to local breaking news coverage and quick-turn enterprise.”

She joined The Post in 2019 as the newsroom’s first community editor. In that role, states The Post, she worked with nearly every desk to connect reporters with their readers. She pitched, reported and edited several reader-driven projects, including how veterans responded to The Afghanistan Papers, a series on Americans navigating the pandemic, and a piece asking readers to describe 2020 in one word. She also partnered with product and engineering teams to lead significant overhauls of the Post’s comments and live chat platforms.

Two years later, Yu was promoted to a senior subscriber engagement editor, where she continued leading projects aimed at deepening The Post’s relationship with readers. She joined Next Generation in late 2021 as its audience and engagement editor, a role that had her work closely with desks to launch reader-friendly experiments and desk trainings. With Shirley Qiu and Lizzy Raben, she created Audience Innovation Labs, a program for reporters to pitch new, audience-forward projects. She also invited editors and reporters to host Expert Talks, a series of newsroom trainings on digital skills and new platforms. And she led the first versions of desk dives in partnership with the audience and analytics teams, providing analysis and strategic recommendations for Business, Tech, Climate and Well+Being.

Most recently as Next Gen’s editor for strategy and growth, Yu launched several projects aimed at new audiences: Post Grad, a column and newsletter with Opinions to reach new graduates; three SMS-based projects with Features, Business and Opinions; and “Try This,” an audio course for self-improvement podcasts on Apple. For most of 2023, she was part of a cross-departmental working group on the future of Local coverage.

More here,

PHOTO: The Washington Post