Southeast Asia Correspondent based in Jakarta & Manila

I thrive when I’m in the trenches reporting from the streets of major cities to remote villages without electricity and running water. I love producing character-driven stories that make complicated issues understandable.

My assignments include reporting on how a top henchman of Indonesia's last dictator remade his image with social media to win the country's presidential election, human trafficking syndicates that are enslaving victims from across Asia, how billions of dollars were stolen from flood control projects in the Philippines and the Myanmar pro-democracy movement's struggle against the military before as well as after the 2021 coup. 

I've delivered stories to international news outlets including the CBC, Deutsche Welle, NPR, VOA, Reuters Broadcast, the BBC and Time.com. I've reported from Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Bangladesh and Myanmar where I was based for several years. I cover social issues, public health, politics, economics, natural disasters and human interest stories. I also train local television and digital video journalists in the region. I earned a master's degree from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism. I've traveled across Southeast Asia on board rickety buses, leaky riverboats and standing-room-only trains.

You can contact me at dgrune@hotmail.com