Pronouns: she / her / hers

Vanessa Arredondo is an investigative reporter at Open Vallejo.

Vanessa comes to Open Vallejo from Reckon, where she worked as a daily news reporter, covering breaking news and the Latinx immigrant community. 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 articles 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.​

Vanessa’s position is made possible by the California Local News Fellowship program, which seeks to support and strengthen local news reporting in California.

A proud community college graduate and native Californian, Vanessa earned her B.A. from UC Berkeley.