Hi, I’m Sean.
I’m a journalist based in Richmond, Virginia. I work as a news editor at VPM News, helping manage our daily coverage of Central Virginia for web, radio and other digital platforms — including the Morning Monitor newsletter. I spend most of my time editing my colleagues’ work, but I occasionally step off the bench to do some reporting myself; you might have seen my reporting in the runup to the 2024 election on Richmond City Council candidate Tavares Floyd — whose false claims about being a lawyer and owning a funeral home shed light on the fact that no city official seems to be responsible for vetting the truthfulness of local campaign finance reports.
Before joining VPM News, I covered a variety of topics through a data-driven lens for the Richmond Times-Dispatch. I won Virginia Press Association awards for data journalism in 2022 (for my education reporting, including book bans, aging school buildings and district spending) and 2023 (for an analysis of the structural condition of Virginia’s bridges).
Prior to that, I was part of the reporting team behind the Pandora Papers, an investigation into global financial corruption led by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. I helped analyze a trove of 12 million leaked documents containing information on offshore financial holdings by powerful figures including world leaders and prominent politicians, and I reported on the shell companies owned by famous athletes and entertainers.
I grew up in New Orleans, Louisiana and have a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Maryland’s Philip Merrill College of Journalism and a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Virginia. I used to host a podcast called It’s Pretty OK and a late-night rock show on WTJU in Charlottesville, Virginia.
