Whitney Shefte

About Whitney Shefte

Whitney Shefte is a Peabody, Murrow and Emmy Award-winning Senior Video Journalist at The New York Times. Previously, she worked as an independent documentary filmmaker after over 17 years at The Washington Post. With a highly versatile and adaptable skill set, Whitney works as a director, cinematographer, producer and editor on documentary, breaking news, interactive, podcast, and enterprise projects. She is most passionate about character-driven, vérité-focused projects on a range of social issues - and excels at building intimacy with those characters in order to capture moments. Whitney’s work has taken her all over the world to tell stories across coverage areas. She documented the war in Ukraine, climate change in Greenland, the ongoing conflict in Western Sahara, press access issues in Pakistan and the aftermath of the genocide in Rwanda. She has also covered myriad issues across the United States from healthcare to immigration to education. In 2023, Whitney was awarded, along with the other women of the Washington Post who covered the war in Ukraine, with the International Women\'s Media Foundation\'s Courage in Journalism Award. She was named Multimedia Journalist of the Year in 2023 and 2019 by the White House News Photographers Association (WHNPA). Whitney was also part of the team that was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in public service for coverage of the January 6 insurrection and its aftermath. Her work on how traumatic brain injury impacts members of the military was awarded a Peabody and she is a three-time Murrow Award winner. Whitney is also a four-time national News & Documentary Emmy Award nominee and she has taken home 6 regional Emmy Awards. Whitney served as president of WHNPA, a professional organization representing hundreds of visual journalists based in the Washington, D.C. region, from 2015 until 2023. She has also worked as an adjunct professor at Georgetown University and the Corcoran College of Art + Design.Whitney is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication where she concentrated in photojournalism. She lives in Washington, DC.

Experience

1. Senior Video Journalist

   The New York Times

   Dec 2025 — Present · Washington, DC, US

   Lead cinematographer for Washington, D.C.–based news video productions, including field reporting, podcast video, and reporter-led shoots; collaborate with video journalists, producers, reporters, and editors to plan and execute visually compelling coverage, while overseeing the bureau’s video studio operations and technical maintenance.

Education

• University of North Carolina at Greensboro

  Photography; Communication Studies

  2002 — 2004

• The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

  Bachelor of Arts (B.A.), Journalism and Mass Communication

  2004 — 2007

• Freie Universität Berlin

  N/A, German

  2005 — 2005

Skills

• Video Editing
• Documentaries
• Multimedia
• Storytelling
• Ap Style
• Photojournalism
• Journalism
• Photos
• Online Journalism
• Magazines
• Final Cut Pro
• Broadcast Journalism
• Feature Articles
• Video Production
• Copy Editing
• Newspaper
• Videography
• Editing
• Sound
• Editorial
• Newspapers
• New Media
• Video
• Breaking News
• News Writing