Sunny Hundal's website

Sunny Hundal

Hello! My website is mostly a collection of my work. Feel free to poke around.

I am passionate about informing people about their world, and have been privileged to gain a wide range of experience across the British media.

I have written regular columns at several newspapers, made a TV documentary for BBC 1, been a university lecturer, co-authored a report for the Home Office, built popular online publications and written a short book. And I'm just getting started.

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Financial Times: We must not be complacent about Britain’s multicultural democracy (PDF)
The Times: Preaching to the converted won't tackle the climate crisis
The Independent: Russia is about to play its most dangerous cards – and the west is not ready
The Guardian: Why you won't win people over with facts on issues like immigration
i News: Calling Asian and black Tories ‘sell outs’ is racist and degrading
Quartz: ISIS is growing and this is why (2015)
Hindustan Times: Religious fundamentalists hate each other, but imitate each other
Al-Jazeera: India’s 60 million women that never were
The Independent: I was part of the 'Twitter mob’ – until I realised what it was doing

Our BBC 1 film was The Sunday Times Pick of the Week
Helping university students become digital journalists
Breaking several stories that hit the national media, including on Jacob Rees-Mogg
I built a tool to track the virality of news stories, which was used by OFCOM
Contributing to BBC News, Newsnight, R4 Today, R4 WATO, R4 Sunday, C4 News
2006 Guardian Blogger Of The Year, Editorial Intelligence Blogger OTY 2011
Running a campaign with BPAS, my viral video on abortion clinics harassment helped pass the law on buffer zones

Deputy Opinion Editor - The Independent
Feb 2022 - Sept. 2022

Work involved: Helped manage the Opinion desk (aka Voices); proof-read and edited articles from columnists; commissioned new ideas based on news agenda and trending stories; wrote articles around the news agenda; liaised with different teams and reached out to new writers to find ways to grab attention for our output.

Achieved: Worked with its best-known columnists; wrote some of the most popular articles of the year at The Indy; enjoyed the fast-paced news environment; helped develop new writers.

Journalist and Writer - European Climate Foundation
Jan - Dec 2021 (p/t)

Work involved: Researched & wrote on topics relating to climate change, clean energy, natural gas and carbon capture; condensed large reports on climate into compelling pieces for hard-to-reach audiences; researched topics such as the Australian natural gas market to understand and explain trends.

Achieved: Learned a lot more about fossil fuels and clean energy technology.

UK Editor - Front Page Live
May 2019 - Mar 2020 (p/t)

Work involved: Helped shape the design & content from launch; wrote "viral" news stories for US audiences before they woke up; liaised with team to find suitable stories across multiple platforms.

Achieved: Made contacts and friends in US media; learnt how US companies leverage networks to go viral.

Social Media Editor & Writer - openDemocracy
2017 - 2021 (p/t)

Work involved: Focused on understanding and expanding audiences (search, social, email, direct); worked & trained with team to make our output social-media friendly (headlines, text); oversaw a doubling of social engagement on FB (up 300% on Twitter); created internal guidelines for social posting; worked with audience editor on social media marketing (Facebook Business Manager, Twitter ads). My story on Indian government interference in UK elections was followed up across the UK media.

Achieved: Learned a lot about marketing through FB and Twitter, A/B testing, fundraising and building donor email lists, segmenting audiences though Google Analytics, building email lists; was elected by colleagues to represent their views to management.

TV Presenter and Writer - BBC
May 2019 - January 2020

Work involved: I pitched the idea to Antidote Productions, who co-developed it and got it commissioned by BBC 1. Wrote much of the dialogue and presented the film. This was a story about how two brothers - both born and bred in Britain - who took very different directions, and what that says about British Multiculturalism. Aired in January 2020.

Achieved: Learnt a lot about broadcasting and presenting; was The Times pick of the week; film trended on Twitter and had a million+ views on iPlayer after broadcast date.

Young, Sikh and Proud

I have also written and presented two monologues for BBC on matters of UK policy on Saudi Arabia and Syria

Opinion Columnist

Columnist, Independent

Columnist, The Guardian

Columnist, Hindustan Times

Contributed to: The Times, Sunday Times, The FT, New Statesman, Quartz, the i, The Metro, Newsweek, Al Jazeera and CNN.com.

Co-author of report - Commission for Countering Extremism / Home Office

Co-authored the UK government's first publicly commissioned report on British Sikhs in recent decades: 'Changing Nature of UK Sikh Activism' - published October 2019.

Co-designed, researched and authored the report with academic Prof. Jagbir Jhutti-Johal, which now informs UK Home Office policy.

Editor - Political Scrapbook
February 2016 - March 2017

Work involved: Recruited as editor for long-running political news site. Published three - four stories a day, a mix of investigative journalism and viral stories.

Achieved: Grew audience by 400% through social media; published numerous stories that made the national press

Senior Visiting Lecturer - Kingston University
2014 - 2016 (p/t)

Work involved: Lectured on digital journalism: building websites for news, how to find and debunk news stories using social media, how blogging works. Also marked student work.

Achieved: Learnt a lot about giving engaging lectures in academic environment, getting students to use critical thinking and helping them understand new tech.

Author - Guardian Books

Commissioned by The Guardian and Amazon UK to write a short Kindle book after the Delhi gangrape incident and protests.

"India Dishonoured: Behind a nation’s war on its women"

Rated 4.5/5 on Amazon; excerpted in The Guardian; led to Ted Talks in Amsterdam and India.

Founder - Rippla, media-tech startup
2011 - 2013

Work involved: Built this tool from scratch after spotting a gap in information about social media sharing of news. Rippla tracked impact of news stories on different social media sites. Published data about findings that was used by news organisations and OFCOM. Was also contracted by a national news outlet and PR firms to track news impact for them.

Achieved: Did most of the coding myself, and learnt how to build tools using public APIs, JSON, PHP, RSS, Javascript & MySQL. The tool became more popular than I expected and led to commercial opportunities.

Editor - Liberal Conspiracy
2007 – 2013

Work involved: Founder and editor-in-chief of an independent news and opinion site. Published five - 10 stories every day, worked with over 150+ writers across the UK media. Recruited as editor for long-running political news site. Published three - four stories a day, a mix of investigative journalism and viral stories.

Achieved: Liberal Conspiracy became the UK's most-read site on the centre-left by 2009; published numerous stories that made the national press; won multiple awards for blogging and editing; developed and encouraged numerous writers now working across the British media.

Editor - AiM Magazine
2003 – 2007

Work involved: Founder & editor of media industry journal. Reported on media industry, ran investigative news and opinion pieces; organised regular & popular networking events in London.

Achieved: Built a 10,000+ strong email list; stories frequently picked up by national media; learnt a lot about journalism and media law; made excellent contacts across the media industry.