John Farrell named The Washington Post’s first climate and weather breaking news video editor

John joined The Post in 2019 from CSPAN and has spent the past 2½ years leading morning video coverage as a breaking news editor. His collegiality and cool head in a crisis have helped guide the video hub team during a years-long relentless news cycle. John is often responsible for publishing some of our earliest video coverage during breaking news, such as the Texas power grid failure, the Surfside condo collapse and the botched U.S. exit from Afghanistan.

John’s background in science provided essential service journalism to our audience throughout the pandemic — from breaking down complex topics such as how virus variants form and spread, the debated validity of herd immunity and an effective step-by-step guide to how vaccines are approved. John has also already demonstrated an aptitude for covering his new beat with videos on climate anxiety and how getting past it could be key to saving our planet. In 2020, he produced a dramatic, informative piece about Hurricane Laura with meteorologist Matthew Cappucci, who was sending in footage from inside the storm. And poetically, his first byline at The Post was on a video that addressed the suggestion that hurricanes can be nuked.

John received a bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of Vermont and made the leap to journalism in graduate school while still receiving a master’s in biology from Harvard University’s extension program.

John will begin his new role after a new breaking news video editor for mornings is hired. Please join us in congratulating him.