Jose Antonio Vargas Biography
Jose Antonio Vargas is an American journalist, filmmaker, and immigration rights, activist. He is well known for being part of The Washington Post team that won the Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Reporting in 2008 for coverage of the Virginia Tech shooting online and in print.
Jose Antonio Vargas Age
Vargas was born on February 3rd, 1981 in Antipolo, Philippines. He is 38 years old as of 2019.
Jose Antonio Vargas Young Family
There is no information about Vargas family, he has not also shared about his early life and how he was raised up. he has also not shared about his parents and their occupation. There is also no information about him having siblings. when Vargas was twelve, his mother sent him to live with his grandparents in the U.S. without obtaining authorization for him to stay in the country permanently; his grandparents were naturalized U.S. citizens
Jose Antonio Vargas Married | Wife
There is no information about him having been married, he has not shared any information about him having married and has opted to keep silent about his personal life. He has also not shared any information about him having dated before. Vargas came out as gay during his senior year of high school in 1999, a decision he later described as “less daunting than coming out about my legal status”.
Jose Antonio Vargas Education
He got enrolled at the Crittenden Middle School and Mountain View High School. He did not learn of his immigration status until 1997 when, at age 16, he attempted to obtain a California driver’s license with identity documents provided by his family that he then discovered were fraudulent. He kept his immigration status secret, pursuing his education and fitting in as an American with the help of friends and teachers. He used a Filipino passport and false documents that included a green card and a driver’s license to help him avoid deportation.
His high school English teacher introduced him to journalism, and in 1998 he began an internship at the Mountain View Voice, a local newspaper. He later became a copy boy for the San Francisco Chronicle. Unable to apply for traditional financial aid due to his status, with the help of his high school principal and school superintendent, Vargas secured a private scholarship to attend San Francisco State University, where he earned a degree in political science and Black Studies. In the summers during college, he interned for the Philadelphia Daily News and The Washington Post.
Jose Antonio Vargas Career
In 2004, immediately after graduation from San Francisco State, he was hired by the Style section of The Washington Post to cover the video game boom. He became known for his anecdotal coverage of the HIV epidemic in Washington. His coverage was adapted into a 2010 documentary entitled, The Other City. In 2007, he was part of the Washington Post team covering the shootings at Virginia Tech, whose work earned a Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Reporting.
When Vargas made a pitch for an assignment as a politics reporter for the Post, he told his editor, “You need someone to cover the presidential campaign who has a Facebook account and who looks at YouTube every day.” Vargas went on to cover the 2008 presidential campaign, including a front-page article in 2007 about Wikipedia’s impact on the 2008 election. He also wrote an online column entitled “The Clickocracy” on the Post’s website.
Vargas authored or contributed to three Washington Post articles about the Virginia Tech shootings that were awarded the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Reporting. In “Students Make Connections at a Time of Total Disconnect” on April 17, 2007, Vargas reported on the role of technology in student experiences during the Virginia Tech shootings.
He described graduate student Jamal Albarghouti running toward the gunshots when he heard them, taking out his cell phone to take a shaky, one-minute video that later was aired on CNN.com. “This is what this YouTube-Facebook-instant messaging generation does,” Vargas wrote. “Witness. Record. Share.” The article also discussed the role of Facebook, which students used to keep in touch during the event. Albarghouti returned to his apartment to find 279 new Facebook messages, Vargas recounted, and another student, Trey Perkins, faced a similar inundation.
Vargas contributed to the article “‘Pop, Pop, Pop’: Students Down, Doors Barred, Leaps to Safety,” which was published on April 17, 2007. Through interviews with eyewitnesses, the story recounted the events of the Virginia Tech shootings. He also contributed to the article “That Was the Desk I Chose to Die Under,” which ran in The Washington Post on April 19, 2007. Vargas gained an interview with an eyewitness to the shootings by approaching him through Facebook, he explained to GMA News. “I got him on the phone, we talked for about 25 minutes, and he was the only eyewitness we had on the story, so it was a critical part of it,” Vargas explained.
In July 2009, Vargas left the Post to join The Huffington Post, part of an exodus of young talent from the paper.[18] Arianna Huffington introduced herself to Vargas at a Washington Press Club Foundation dinner after overhearing someone mistake him for a busboy. Vargas joined Huffington Post as technology and innovations editor, where he then created a “Technology as Anthropology” blog and launched the Technology vertical in September 2009 and the College vertical in February 2010.
Jose Antonio Vargas Net Worth
Jose estimated net worth is under review, there is no information about his net worth or salary but he is said to have been earning a huge salary from his work.
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