He was a writer for two years for the Associated Press, where he wrote narrative feature stories, and also worked at Newsday, where he was a police reporter on Long Island.[3][4] Luo also reported for the Los Angeles Times before moving to The New York Times.[3] In 2002, Luo received a George Polk Award for Criminal Justice Reporting and a Livingston Award for Young Journalists "for a series of articles on three poor, [disabled] African-Americans in Alabama who were in prison for killing a baby that probably never existed."[3] The story resulted in the release of two of the three, while the third remained in prison for a separate charge.[3] In 2000, Luo won a T.W. Wang Award for Excellence for journalism on Chinese-American topics.[4]
Luo joined The New York Times in September 2003 at the metropolitan desk.[3][4] According to the Times, Luo "has written about economics and the recession as a national correspondent; covered the 2008 presidential campaign and the 2010 midterm elections; and done stints in Washington and in the Baghdad bureau."[3] Luo wrote a viral piece about a woman who accosted him for being a Chinese American in October 2016.[6]
He has since gone to edit investigations at the New Yorker and was eventually promoted to manage its entire digital presence.