Lohud's Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy hosted a panel aimed at helping people who believe they have been unfairly billed fines for missing initial toll bills at The Journal News/lohud office in White Plains Tuesday, Jan. 9, 2018 Peter Carr/The Journal News
It’s not every day that the big boss asks you to write your own ticket.
But that’s exactly what happened when I walked into the newsroom on Jan. 3, my first day back from vacation in the new year.
Executive Editor Traci Bauer told me she wanted me to be part of the digital team. This year’s agenda for the newsroom would be focused heavily on our digital goals and she wanted me to be part of the effort. Best of all, I’d get to create my dream job.
There were very few parameters. I could write my own job description and even suggest a title!
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Having spent more than a decade in the company, I knew this was an unusual offer. My job as engagement editor and member of the Editorial Board, and before that as a reporter on various teams including municipal, education and investigations, all had a set job description.
So it was with a lot of excitement and a bit of trepidation that I agreed to take up the challenge.
Anjanette Delgado, our digital director and my new boss, brainstormed ideas with me.
Delgado, who recently topped MediaShift’s list of 20 innovators in media metrics who are working to transform metrics inside newsrooms, was honored for helping build a tool which records not the clicks but the real-world change our journalism inspires. The product, the impact tracker, is now being rolled out at several newsrooms across the USA Today Network.
In other words, I am in good hands.
So here's my new job
I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted to do. I loved the audience and community engagement aspects of my current job, as well as being part of the Editorial Board and serving as an ombudswoman for the company.
When I moved on from the role of a reporter more than two years ago, the one thing I missed was creating content at the same rate as I once did.
While I am excited about writing more, I want to do things differently this time. Having spent a sizable chunk of my time on audience engagement as an engagement editor, I am convinced that audience input has to be a cornerstone of any new project I undertake.
One of the first assignments I undertook last year was traveling to Washington, D.C., to cover the Women’s March. I traveled with a group of women from Westchester County. The sheer energy of the event, with women from all over the country, many of whom had spent days on buses from places like California, Montana and Florida to make their voices heard, was inspiring.
I want to carve an area for myself that I can use to amplify the efforts of women seeking to empower themselves in a variety of ways, whether by being more politically involved, seeking career growth and opportunities or contributing to their communities by volunteering.
As an immigrant, I also am naturally interested in what the new policies on immigration will mean to the Lower Hudson Valley. While issues around undocumented immigrants are important and go the heart of what our country stands for, there are many stories to be told about newly arrived documented immigrants. The Lower Hudson Valley is home to many multinational corporations including IBM, MasterCard and PepsiCo who use skilled workers to keep their businesses competitive. What’s happening to those new arrivals and potential future citizens?
I’ll be taking on these and a series of other topics that bring more of our community into our work.
How you can help
I'd love for my coverage to be more of a conversation. My goal is to increase participation by telling helpful, useful stories while harnessing the "wisdom of the crowd." I'll be sending call-outs on specific topics. Please share your experiences, perspective and expertise. You might even be able to vote on story ideas I'm considering or attend panels on topics of interest. I'll be conducting my work out in the open, too – posting as I report, asking questions when I don’t have the answers.
If you have specific story ideas or tips, here are a few ways to reach me:
e-mail: svenugop@lohud.com
Phone: 914-696-8229
WhatsApp or text: 914-609-8088
Twitter: @SwapnaVenugopal
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/swapna.venugopal.31
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/swapna-venugopal-ramaswamy/
Or you can invite me to grab a coffee!
I will continue to be a member of the Editorial Board and serve as an ombudswoman for audiences, explaining our work. I will also be hosting quick turnaround events with small live audiences, such as the one on cashless tolling held last week.
I look forward to my new adventure with excitement and I hope to work with you to become a catalyst for positive change in our communities, the region and the state.
Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy is a New Audience Strategist and member of the Editorial Board for The Journal News/lohud.com, part of the USA Today Network. She also serves as an ombudswoman for the paper.
Twitter: @SwapnaVenugopal