Open Vallejo is excited to announce the addition of Vanessa Arredondo as our newest investigative reporter. A fluent Spanish speaker with a strong track record of examining pressing social issues, Vanessa brings national-level reporting experience to the award-winning, local nonprofit newsroom.
Vanessa’s position is made possible by the California Local News Fellowship program, which seeks to support and strengthen local news reporting in underserved California communities. The program, spearheaded by California State Senator Steve Glazer in 2022, is a state-funded initiative that provides $25 million in funding to support three cohorts of early-career journalists working full-time for two years each at small and large newspapers, public radio stations, and community and ethnic media outlets across 35 California counties.
Vanessa comes to Open Vallejo from Reckon, where she worked as a daily news reporter, covering breaking news and other significant stories. Prior to Reckon, she was a national breaking news reporter at USA Today, where she monitored news across the country, pitched and wrote breaking news stories on crime, law, and politics, and edited local stories for a national audience.
Vanessa was previously a reporting fellow at the Los Angeles Times, where she covered education policy at the California State Capitol and wrote extensively on the opioid crisis, gun violence, and pedestrian fatalities in San Francisco. She previously served as a Hearst Fellow at the San Francisco Chronicle, covering breaking news and enterprise stories. She has also held internships at NBC Universal, ABC 7, CalMatters, and CNN.
Vanessa is dedicated to mentoring young journalists, as evidenced by her volunteer work with JCal and the LA Times High School Insider program, where she guided high school journalists from diverse backgrounds in their reporting projects.
A proud community college graduate and native Californian, Vanessa earned her B.A. from UC Berkeley in 2020. She starts at Open Vallejo on Sept. 9.
