September 28, 2023
Newsletter

Protesters march through downtown Seattle after the release of body camera footage of a city officer apparently joking about the death of Jaahnavi Kandula. (Lindsey Wasson/AP, article by Alisha Ebrahimji)

ISSUE HIGHLIGHTS:

  • Contact your local chapter board to run for a 2024 seat
  • Read our open letter to the Press Forward Initiative 
  • Join AAJA's Slack and introduce yourself
  • Explore the Trans Journalists Association’s updated style guide
 

From AAJA-HQ: Chapter leadership, open letter to Press Forward, new lifetime members

Statement AAJA joined IJA, NABJ, NAHJ and the Vision25 team, the Online News Association (ONA), Open News and Maynard Institute in urging journalism funders to use the $500M Press Forward opportunity to invest in people and organizations bringing local news to communities of color. Forbes wrote about how community trust in local newsrooms, particularly BIPOC-led ones, is instrumental to our democracy. 

Lifetime Members We welcome new lifetime members to our #AAJAFamily! Thank you to Virgil Smith for supporting AAJA’s mission. Join him and become a lifetime member today.

Slack Since our last newsletter, 930 members have joined AAJA's Slack workspace and introduced themselves in the #introduce-yourself channel. To all the new members, thank you for being an active part of our community and welcome to #AAJAFamily! If you’re a member and haven't received an invite yet, please reach out to support@aaja.org

Chapter elections Chapters, it's time to run your board elections! For guidance, view our suggested timeline. Interested in running for a seat? Learn more about joining the boards of AAJA-SF Bay Area and AAJA-New York, or reach out to your local chapter.

Chapter Leadership

On Tuesday, Sept. 26, former and current AAJA chapter leaders held a virtual session on how taking on chapter leadership helped them in their careers. Watch the recording here, or read our takeaways below.

By becoming an AAJA chapter leader, you will gain skills in:

  • People management
  • Project management
  • Communication
  • Budgeting

These are great roles for those who want to:

  • Empower others
  • Support the mission of AAJA
  • Advance onto other leadership roles, both at AAJA and at your profession
 
 

🌠 AAJA Community Awards Spotlight: Celina Tebor, Emerging Journalist of the Year

 

"This is Celina’s third year serving on the board of AAJA-Portland, the only organization in Oregon specifically designed to support journalists of color in the state. She began in 2020 as the chapter’s student representative, then became vice president of social media in 2022. She helped secure a $10,000 grant that allowed the board to open an additional slot for its summer internship program and reignited the board’s social media presence, greatly boosting engagement among chapter members."

Read about all the AAJA Community Award winners.

 

 🗓 AAJA Events

Contact us to list your event on our events calendar.

(L-R) On Saturday, Sept. 16, AAJA-Los Angeles hosted their Randy Hagihara Coaching Day, while AAJA’s SDSU student group met with AAJA-San Diego president JoAnn Fields. On Sunday, Sept. 17, AAJA-New York, including members of AAJA’s Craig Newmark J-school student group, met for coffee and AAJA-Sacramento held a dim sum mixer.

October 1 | AAJA-Asia’s Cross-border Reporting on Sanitation Work in Asia | Join AAJA-Asia for a hybrid N3 salon on Sunday, Oct. 1 at 2 p.m. JST. Award-winning journalists, community members and workers will discuss the spread of waste-to-energy technology from Japan to Southeast Asia. RSVP here

*Rescheduled* October 7 | AAJA-New York’s Back to School Picnic | Join AAJA-NY for a back to school picnic on Saturday, Oct. 7 at 11 a.m. at Central Park. RSVP here

October 17 | AAJA-New York’s 2023 Trivia Cup | Join AAJA-NY on Tuesday, Oct. 17 at All Star Sports Bar for trivia night! Raffle prizes will be available, and proceeds will go towards supporting AAJA-NY chapter’s marathon runner, Helena Cheng. RSVP here.

 

📓 News & Resources

style guide The Trans Journalists Association (TJA) updated their style guide to include expanded materials, interactive search options, and more. It’s a step towards achieving their goal of training newsrooms to refine their coverage of trans people on a broader level.

AAJA in the media Editor & Publisher featured longtime AAJA members Kris Vera-Phillips and Theodore Kim in an article on #AAJA23 and AAJA’s mission to uplift AAPIs in news media. “It’s a group that is close to my heart, that’s helped me build many relationships in my career,” Kim said.

report Latinos are underrepresented in U.S. journalism leadership despite the growing Latino percentage of the population, a new report from the Latino Donor Collaborative and National Association of Hispanic Journalists has found. The report parallels the findings of AAJA’s Broadcast Snapshot Project, which found that on-air representation of AAPIs in news was well below AAPI population percentages in most major markets.

AAJA VOICES highlight Dhanika Pineda and Rachel Kim’s VOICES project was republished by AsAmNews. Their story focused on non-citizens in the U.S. who are striving to get their voices and priorities heard.

 

👏 AAJA Kudos to...

 

On Our List 🌟📺📸📰🎧

Follow us on X @aaja for more works on our radar from the AAJA community.

Congress is racing to avoid a government shutdown when the fiscal year ends on September 30th.
Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images

  • “Congress races against time to avert a shutdown in 3 days, facing bleak prospects" by Scott Wong and Sahil Kapur, NBC News
  • Engineering student run over by Seattle police remembered as ‘brilliant’ and ‘full of hope’” by Sakshi Venkatraman, NBC News
  • “Man charged with hate crime after vandalism at Wing Luke Museum” by Alexandra Yoon-Hendricks, The Seattle Times
  • “Saving Chinatown, While Also Making It Their Own” by Ligaya Mishan, The New York Times
  • “These Congressmen saw Chinese spies where none existed” by Randall Yip, AsAmNews
  • “Working harder than ever: the last remaining Japanese American farmers” by Claire Wang, The Guardian
  • “In an increasingly pessimistic era, immigrants espouse a hallmark American trait — optimism” by Brittny Mejia, Jeong Park, and Jack Herrera, The Los Angeles Times
  • “A Maui family whose home burned down struggles to rebuild their lives” by Anumita Kaur, The Washington Post 
  • Think reparations are impossible? The story of Japanese Americans proves otherwise” by Caitlin Yoshiko Kandil, The Guardian

Groups of leaves sprouting on the historic Lahaina Banyan Tree for the first time since the wildfires. (hawaiidlnr via Instagram/NBC News, article by Emi Tuyetnhi Tran)

 

Opportunities  
Visit AAJA Careers or follow @AAJACareers on X to post jobs or internships and stay up-to-date on available positions. Check in with your AAJA chapters for more opportunities. 

AAJA Opportunities:

  • Team AAJA | Learn more about the team representing AAJA at the 2023 TCS New York City Marathon and donate here.
  • AAJA Studio Submissions | Become an expert and join here.
  • AAJA Style Guide | Join us in reshaping AAPI coverage and news standards.
  • AAJA-Chicago Volunteer | Fill out the form to learn more about how to participate as a volunteer "mentor" for AAJA-Chicago's "Coffee with a Journalist" program.
  • AAJA-New England's Pilot Mentorship Program | Fill out a short questionnaire for the opportunity to build relationships, give back to the next generation of journalists, and grow as a professional and a member of the AAJA community. | Deadline: Monday, Oct. 9.

External Opportunities: 

  • The Chauncey Bailey Journalist of Color Investigative Reporting Fellowship | In honor of journalist Chauncey Bailey, this year-long fellowship program provides journalists of color with training, mentorship and data services to pursue an investigative project. | Deadline to apply: Thursday, Oct. 5. | Learn more here.
  • Sports Journalism Institute (SJI) 2023 | This nine-week training and internship program is aimed at college students who are interested in sports reporting and a career in sports journalism. SJI also works to uplift women and minorities in the world of sports journalism. | Deadline to apply: Friday, Nov. 3. | Learn more here
 

Did someone forward you this email? Join AAJA to subscribe to our newsletter.

Did you produce some great journalism recently, or see good work from others? 
Put work on our radar to feature in our next member highlights.

Collectively, we can celebrate 40 years of impact and contribute towards 40 more years of AAJA's mission of supporting and uplifting AAPI journalists. Donate today.

Asian American Journalists Association

Having trouble viewing this email? View it in your web browser

You are receiving this email because you are an AAJA member or supporter. We recently moved to a different email server. If you previously unsubscribed, you can update your subscription preferences below.

Unsubscribe or Manage Your Preferences