Jennifer Vanasco is the News and Culture editor at WNYC, where she edits the daily news for air and arts features, and covers the arts and the economics of culture.
She previously was the Minority Reports columnist for Columbia Journalism Review, where she analyzed how the mainstream media covered social minorities, and the editor in chief of MTV's LGBT news and politics website 365gay.com. Her nationally-syndicated, weekly newspaper column Common Life ran for 14 years and won the Peter Lisagor Award for opinion writing from the Society of Professional Journalists three times. She has also won the New York Radio Festivals Silver Award, the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association Excellence in Radio Award, the National Headline Award, plus other awards from the Associated Press, the New York State Broadcasters Association, the Webbys and others. She's published work in anthologies, and was a fellow at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center and SPACE at Ryder Farm. She is an adjunct Assistant Professor at Columbia University, is on the faculty of the critic's program at the O'Neill, and was invited by the U.S. State Department to coach Iraqi journalists on media ethics at the United Nations. She graduated from Wellesley. You can follow her on Twitter @JenniferVanasco
Jennifer Vanasco appears in the following:
Friday, March 15, 2024
By
Jennifer Vanasco : News Editor, WNYC News
This year, the longest-running — and one of the most important — regular showcases of American art is not a survey, but a conversation.
Saturday, January 06, 2024
By
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Carrie Kahn /
Debbie Elliott /
Jennifer Vanasco : News Editor, WNYC News /
From NPR's Books We Love list, our staff recommends the cookbooks "Ed Mitchell's Barbeque," "Invitation to a Banquet," "The Secret of Cooking," "The Migrant Chef," and "Asada."
Tuesday, October 10, 2023
By
Jennifer Vanasco : News Editor, WNYC News
A new art installation asks people and institutions to go beyond land acknowledgements — and give property back to Indigenous tribes. (Story aired on All Things Considered on Oct. 9, 2023.)
Monday, October 09, 2023
By
Jennifer Vanasco : News Editor, WNYC News
A new art installation asks people and institutions to go beyond land acknowledgements - and give property back to Indigenous tribes.
Saturday, September 23, 2023
By
Jennifer Vanasco : News Editor, WNYC News
Broadway tickets are expensive — add babysitting to that and the costs are often prohibitive. But a nonprofit is trying to bring free babysitting to theaters around the country.
Saturday, September 16, 2023
By
Jennifer Vanasco : News Editor, WNYC News
The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York is trying something new to introduce kids to the materials that make art.
Thursday, August 10, 2023
By
Jennifer Vanasco : News Editor, WNYC News
The 75th Emmy Awards have been rescheduled to broadcast on Monday, Jan. 15, 2024 — Martin Luther King Jr. Day. It's television's most prestigious awards show, but ratings have been dropping steadily.
Monday, July 31, 2023
By
Jennifer Vanasco : News Editor, WNYC News /
Glen Weldon
Pee-wee's creator, Paul Reubens, died Sunday of cancer. He was 70. Pee-wee was a petulant man-child and a trickster spirit, a burst of joyous id that snuck his brand of anarchy into the mainstream.
Monday, July 17, 2023
By
Jennifer Vanasco : News Editor, WNYC News
To celebrate Disability Pride Month, Music: Not Impossible brought vibrating haptic suits to a Lincoln Center dance party.
Tuesday, July 04, 2023
By
Jennifer Vanasco : News Editor, WNYC News
Democracy is messy. A new free play for visitors to the Federal Hall National Monument in New York shows just how messy the early days of the federal government were.
Monday, June 12, 2023
By
Jennifer Vanasco : News Editor, WNYC News
The theater was sweltering. There was no script. And yet it was a swift, entertaining show.
Sunday, June 11, 2023
By
Jennifer Vanasco : News Editor, WNYC News
History was made, as Alex Newell became the first nonbinary actor to win a Tony and J. Harrison Ghee the second. We'll be updating this winners list throughout the night.
Saturday, June 10, 2023
By
Jennifer Vanasco : News Editor, WNYC News
The 76th annual Tony Awards are Sunday, with performances from the top Broadway musicals.
Saturday, June 03, 2023
By
Jennifer Vanasco : News Editor, WNYC News
A new exhibit at the Museum of the City of New York focuses on the Big Apple's impact on pop culture.
Thursday, June 01, 2023
By
Jennifer Vanasco : News Editor, WNYC News
The Museum of the City of New York is marking its centennial with an exhibition of NYC-inspired film, TV, music and fashion. But this is real New York, "not a love letter," says one of the curators.
Friday, May 05, 2023
By
Jennifer Vanasco : News Editor, WNYC News
The casts of both shows joined together to sing a parody song penned by Miranda.
Tuesday, May 02, 2023
By
Jennifer Vanasco : News Editor, WNYC News
J. Harrison Ghee (Some Like It Hot) and Alex Newell (Shucked) are the first nonbinary actors to be nominated for Tonys, and today's announcement also highlighted three plays which have won Pulitzers.
Wednesday, January 25, 2023
By
Jennifer Vanasco : News Editor, WNYC News
Puerto Rican artists wrestle with what Hurricane Maria revealed about their country's flaws and strengths in an exhibit at the Whitney Museum of American Art. (Story aired on ATC on Jan. 7, 2023.)
Saturday, January 07, 2023
By
Jennifer Vanasco : News Editor, WNYC News
The first major exhibit of Puerto Rican art on the mainland in 50 years wrestles with the question: Who is Puerto Rico for?
Thursday, January 05, 2023
By
Jennifer Vanasco : News Editor, WNYC News
More than a century ago, a Met librarian made some of the first live music recordings. Now, (with an assist from NPR) 16 of the Mapleson Cylinders are joining the New York Public Library collection.