Executive Editor
Our speaker today started her own newspaper in third grade, and mostly wrote about pets.
Tasneem Raja is the Executive Editor of The Tyler Loop, a nonprofit journalism startup that explores policy, history, and demographics in Tyler, Texas.
She is an award-winning journalist who has reported for NPR, The New Yorker, the Atlantic, Mother Jones, and other national outlets. A former senior editor at NPR, she launched a popular podcast exploring issues of identity and race with NPR’s Code Switch team.
At Mother Jones, she specialized in data visualization and led a team that built the first-ever database of mass shootings in America. She’s a pioneer in the field of data-driven digital storytelling, a frequent speaker on issues of digital journalism, and a die-hard fan of alt weeklies, where she got her start as a local reporter.
She lives in Tyler with her husband, her stepson, and two imperious terriers.