AAJA

AAJA declines off-the-record meeting with U.S. Department of Justice on media policy

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The Asian American Journalists Association, along with several journalism organizations, was invited by Attorney General Eric Holder to attend an off-the-record meeting on media policy.

AAJA, however, will not attend. National President Paul Cheung explained the organization’s reasoning in a statement released Sunday:

While AAJA welcomed the invitation to meet with the U.S. Department of Justice on media policy, AAJA will not be attending the meeting.

We advocate for fair and accurate media coverage on behalf of our 1,700 members. An off-the-record conversation would not allow us to inform our full membership about the meeting.

Transparency is key to building trust between the news industry, our government and the public. Should there be a future on-the-record meeting, AAJA would gladly join the conversation to help shape media policy in a way that best serves the public and diversity in news media.

Several other organizations, including the National Association of Black Journalists and the Native American Journalists Association have also declined the invitation.

UNITY: Journalists of Diversity Inc., an umbrella group that includes AAJA, will be attending the meeting.

Three AAJA Seattle members to participate in the 2013 Executive Leadership Program

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Three AAJA Seattle members have been selected to participate in the 2013 Executive Leadership Program.

The three-day program will be held from Aug. 20 to Aug. 22, in conjunction with the AAJA National Convention in New York.

The annual program builds the leadership and management skills of mid-career journalists seeking to join the ranks of mid-level and upper management in the newsroom. The program’s curriculum includes a wide variety of topics related to journalism and leadership development.

AAJA Seattle has provided $2,100 in financial support to help cover the cost of the program for all three participants. [Full disclosure: To avoid a conflict of interest, president Mai Hoang recused herself from the voting process.]

AAJA Seattle members attending this year’s program are:

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Venice Buhain, an editor for Patch, is a long-time member of AAJA Seattle and has served in several roles for the chapter, including chapter secretary and co-chair of the Northwest Journalists of Color scholarship program in 2010.

Mai Hoang, business reporter, for the Yakima Herald-Republic, is currently serving as president of AAJA Seattle. She previously served as chapter treasurer and co-chair of the Northwest Journalists of Color scholarship program in 2010.

She also was selected as a recipient of the Dinah Eng Leadership Fellowship, which provides a $400 stipend to attend the Executive Leadership Program.

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Thanh Tan, multimedia editorial writer for the Seattle Times, is an alumna of the Northwest Journalists of Color scholarship and also was the keynote speaker for the NJC Reception in 2011.

Congrats to all three participants!

Bravos for Social Media Bootcamp

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Tons of transformational ideas, tools and Twitter tips highlighted the AAJA Seattle Spring Training Social Media and Self-Branding Bootcamp on March 28. Sona Patel, Lauren Rabaino and Brian Rosenthal of the Seattle Times did a dynamite job dishing out info and inspiration (plus a tour of the newly consolidated Times newsroom).

The talented trio asked us to blog about our five top takeaways. My list:

Interact. Subscribe to blogs. Follow people who are doing what you want to do.  Comment on their posts. Lauren shared an anecdote from her student days how she posted on a Big-Shot Journalist’s blog and he responded, much to her delighted astonishment. It marks you as someone who contributes to the discourse and helps establish you as a credible source of information.

Use your name or a consistent alias across all platforms. To build the brand, you need a unified naming convention on Twitter, your website, Facebook, LinkedIn.

Tweet where you’re at. Beaming out that you’re at a school board meeting, tech conference (or AAJA event!) builds credibility that you’re covering what’s important, doing the footwork.

Don’t sweat the SEO. People will find you if you write well about what matters to you, said Lauren. Brilliant strategy.

Always have visuals – makes posts more shareable. To wit: Fueling up for the drive home to Bellingham, I stopped afterward at Molly Moon’s Homemade Ice Cream for a triple hot fudge sundae (salted caramel, Scout mint and vegan coconut chunk!). Noticed they had a map showing their ingredients’ origin. Noticed their milk and cream come from the Edaleen Dairy in Lynden. Realized this would make a fun post on my Blue Ribbon blog about local food, farming and fairs. Also, realized, with regret, that a photo of the little thumbtack on “Lynden” would’ve made the post 10 times cooler. Hit home that I need to take my camera everywhere — even the malt shop.

TV anchor tunes into Spam, the First Amendment and what you can learn at a beauty pageant

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Rain gear comes in handy for Lori Matsukawa's job as a Seattle news anchor.

Name: Lori Matsukawa
Lives in: Bellevue, Wash.
Born: Honolulu, Hawaii
Education: B.A. from Stanford University, master’s degree from University of Washington
Work: news anchor, KING-TV, Seattle
Formerly: Anchor/reporter at KOMO-TV, Seattle; KPIX-TV, Portland, Ore.; KRCR-TV, Redding, Calif.; college intern, Honolulu Advertiser.
AAJA member since: 1983. Co-founded Seattle Chapter in 1985.
Must-reads: Wall Street Journal, Seattle Times. Often checks out TIME Magazine, Honolulu Magazine, Twitter, Facebook.
Print or online news? Both.
Go-to website: KING5.com
Best journalism moment: Documenting Gov. Gary Locke’s first trip to China in 1997.
Worst journalism moment: “When my photographer was arrested at Pearl Harbor covering the 50th anniversary.”
Twitter handle: @LoriMatsukawa
Languages: English and “tourist” French. “I can order a beer in Japanese.”
Can’t put down: “The Hunger Games” trilogy.
Favorite Seattle restaurants: Tie: Kaname and Wann Izakaya.
Must-see TV: “60 Minutes”
Fave flick: Tie: “Gone With the Wind” and “The Terminator”
Heaven on a plate: Spam musubi.
Top toy: “My golf clubs.”
You might not know: “I decided to study journalism during my year as Miss Teenage America 1974. I was always being interviewed by reporters and decided this was the job for me: getting paid to talk to people!”
Main motivation: “Journalism is the first draft of history. It’s the only job that’s protected by the First Amendment, so we’d better take it seriously.”

What’s in Your Backpack, Journalist?

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If you’ve been looking for your next journalism position then you know your journey has probably been painfully bumpy against the backdrop of the lingering recession, newsroom cut backs, leaner paychecks, scarcity of jobs and scores of unemployed journalists eager to get back to another newsroom. Many others have even jumped the journalism ship in search of other opportunities.

Want a journalism job? Carry more tools to get hired, survive and thrive in the news industry. (Photo by Furhana Afrid)

You may have invested the last few months or years doing everything you could possibly do to help secure that next job. You’ve sent out hundreds of resumes tapes, relentlessly telephoned news directors to tell them why you are the “One,” hit the journalism conventions running and networked until you are blue in your face. You tweet and follow the who’s who on social media, and perhaps you accomplished all that on a very tight budget. It’s no wonder that your backpack feels heavier with discouragement and doubt about your future in journalism.

You thought you paid your dues by busting your rear end when you were trying to break into the journalism industry and then working yourself to the bone at your first or next job. Now it seems you are back to ground zero. Not really. You are a backpack journalist! (also known as a video, multimedia, multiplatform, digital or one-man/woman band journalist). You are accustomed to producing several stories a day under deadline. The tools in your backpack and your story-telling skills make it all happen. And with so much versatility at your fingertips you can do it all over again even if you are not working in a newsroom right now.

So journalist what’s in your backpack that can turn that long or short spell of unemployment or underemployment into an opportunity to innovate, explore and keep your skills sharp?

Three Tips to Strengthen Your Job Search Backpack:

Create Web Footprint: Employers are looking for creative self-starters. Your website is your broadcasting channel to showcase your multimedia skills. It’s your story-telling portfolio for video/online/audio stories, photographs and news writing. Many journalists are using WordPress.com or WordPress.org to create their sites and tell their stories. The good news…website design credentials are not required to own your own piece of real estate on the internet. You can also use other website developers like Tumblr, Drupal or Joomla. Plus free online tutorials will show you what to do. I’ve been using a WordPress tutorial from the Knight Digital Media Center. It’s an easy to follow, step-by-step approach. Try it.

Practice Super Story-telling: Jobs will come and go. So will tools. But your story-telling skills will be yours to keep and nurture. NBC multimedia journalist Thanh Truong told me at a recent AAJA convention that many journalists can shoot video, edit and deliver the news. But it’s how well you capture the essence of a story that differentiates one storyteller from another. As a master story-teller your chances of hitting a home run to your next journalism position improve significantly. So put your video gear to work. Check out Poynter’s News University online courses. These courses are affordable, sometimes free and will really help you craft compelling visual stories.

Nurture Strong Relationships: The journalism industry continues to shed jobs. CNN is reportedly one of the latest casualties with some fifty out the door. You know that you are not the only one. But when times are tough it is easy to spiral down into the abyss of pessimism, low self-esteem and isolation. So don’t turn into an island. Reach out to your trusted family, friends and peers. They will help you weather the storm and encourage you to stay afloat. Stay active in your community. Start groups with like-minded people. Volunteer your skills for a worthy cause. You have the ability to help change lives and your circumstances.

So journalist what else is in your backpack?

Furhana Afrid is a backpack journalist and social media manager.

Convention registration deadline extended three more weeks

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Come hear tips and hard-won wisdom from award-winning journalists.

Learn about Chinese-American Vincent Chin, whose 1982 murder in Detroit lit the match of the Asian-American movement.

Build your network of industry contacts and meet recruiters.

AAJA holds its National Convention Aug. 10-13 in Detroit. If you haven’t registered yet, you’re lucky: National is allowing people to get the LOWEST rates for three more weeks. The deadline has been extended to July 8.

Don’t delay any longer! Go to http://2011aaja.eventbrite.com now and register before rates go up!

Looking for a roommate at convention? E-mail me at sbhatt@seattletimes.com and I can let you know who else is seeking a roommate.

Here is a list of the chapter members who I know have registered or are attending on a scholarship. If you’d like me to add your name to this list, just send me an e-mail. If you see our scholarship winners, please congratulate them!

  • Sanjay Bhatt
  • Frank Blethen
  • Sharon Chan
  • Athima Chansanchai
  • Shawn Chitnis
  • Judy Hsu
  • Kyle Kim (VOICES scholarship)
  • Owen Lei
  • Caroline Li (Ford Foundation scholarship)
  • Marian Liu
  • Peter Sessum (Founders scholarship)
  • Sarah Wallace (Ford Foundation scholarship)
  • Sunny Wu (Ford Foundation scholarship)

If you want to share the promo video link with your friends and colleagues, here’s the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKvJ5dx7P-Y

VIP Reception for Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan after her appearance at Elliott Bay Books, June 10

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Join AAJA New York member and author Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan and longtime AAJA Seattle member Terry Tazioli, host of TVW’s “Author Hour,” for a conversation about food and family in her tantalizing memoir “A Tiger in the Kitchen” at Elliott Bay Book Co., and then come to a VIP private reception/fundraiser at Tazioli’s home!

Conversation: 8 p.m. on Friday, June 10

Location: Elliott Bay Book Co., 1521 10th Avenue, Seattle (Capitol Hill neighborhood)

Based in New York, Cheryl is a freelance journalist who has worked for the Wall Street Journal, InStyle magazine and the Baltimore Sun. She has given much back to AAJA as a longtime former AAJA Governing Board member.

After growing up in the most food-obsessed city in the world, Cheryl left home and family at eighteen for America to pursue her dream of becoming a journalist. (It was proof of the rebelliousness of daughters born in the Year of the Tiger.)

But as a thirtysomething fashion writer in New York, she felt the Singaporean dishes that defined her childhood beginning to call her back. Was it too late to learn the secrets of her grandmothers’ and aunties’ kitchens, as well as the tumultuous family history that had kept them hidden before? In her quest to recreate the dishes of her native Singapore by cooking with her family, Cheryl learned not only cherished recipes but long-buried stories of past generations.

If you liked “Eat Pray Love” or you have noshed at Malay Satay Hut in Seattle, you will devour Cheryl’s book. You can check out her blog at http://atigerinthekitchen.com and follow Cheryl on Twitter @cheryltan88.

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A VIP reception with author and AAJA member Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan

Friday, June 10, 9:30 p.m. to 11:30 p.m.
Location: The Leschi home of Terry Tazioli, host of TVW’s “Author Hour”

We’ll be eating late-night snacks with Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan at a VIP reception immediately after her book reading at Elliott Bay Book Co. In Singapore, we call the midnight snack siew yeh. You’re invited to siew yeh with Cheryl after her reading Friday!

You’ll get personalized cooking tips from Cheryl and the New York Fashion Week style forecast straight from the one-time InStyle magazine editor.

All attendees will receive a signed copy of a new special recipe designed for Seattle foodies by Cheryl that is not in her book. You’ll also be able to purchase autographed copies of her new book at the reception.

It’s all for a great cause. Proceeds from the reception will benefit the Founders Scholarship program for the nonprofit Asian American Journalists Association Seattle Chapter.

We will also be selling tickets at Cheryl’s book reading at Elliott Bay Book Co. at 8 p.m. on June 10.

Buy your tickets today from Brown Paper Tickets!  AAJA members get in for $25. Non-AAJA members pay $40. These prices do not include Brown Paper Tickets’ service charge.

Any time in June: Buy your copy of “A Tiger in the Kitchen” by AAJA member Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan from Elliott Bay Book Co. in June and the store will donate 10 percent of sales proceeds for the book to the AAJA Seattle Founders Scholarship!

You don’t need to live in Seattle to take advantage of this offer. You can order a copy of Cheryl’s book by mail from Elliott Bay and she will sign it for you while she is in Seattle on June 10! To order, call 206-624-6600 or email orders@elliottbaybook.com

AAJA National Secretary election to begin Friday

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With the election of Doris Truong of The Washington Post to AAJA National President, AAJA is holding a special election beginning Friday for National Secretary.

Athima Chansanchai, owner of Tima Media and AAJA Seattle’s National Board Representative, is one of the candidates. Learn more about her candidacy here.

Also running for the office is Theodore Kim, reporter at The Dallas Morning News and vice-president of the AAJA Texas chapter. Learn more about his candidacy here.

Get informed and vote!

Some election details:

Voter Eligibility. Only full members, whose dues are paid for the current year, are eligible to vote in this special election.For questions about the election process or the duties of the National Secretary, please contact Elections Officer Janet Cho: jcho@plaind.com.

Absentee Voting. On Oct. 1, eligible voters will receive an e-mail with voting instructions and the link to the electronic absentee ballot, and have until 5p.m. (PST) Oct. 22 to vote. Ballots by mail/fax must be RECEIVED BY 5p.m. (PST) on Oct. 22 and are subject to member verification.

    MAIL TO:
    AAJA Special Election Ballot
    5 Third Street, Suite 1108
    San Francisco, CA 94103
    FAX: (415) 346-6343

AAJA Seattle student member: AAJA Convention gave feeling of “renewed hope” in journalism

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NJC Scholars with Bill Dinh

[Mary Pauline Diaz, far left, with fellow Northwest Journalists of Color Scholarship winners Katelin Chow and Peter Sessum and AAJA co-founder Bill Sing during the 2010 AAJA National Convention in Los Angeles.]

Mary Pauline Diaz, a 2010 Northwest Journalists of Color Scholarship winner, spent her summer writing for the Seattle Weekly. As a recipient of AAJA Seattle’s Founders Scholarship, Diaz she also was able to attend the 2010 AAJA National Convention in Los Angeles in August. As AAJA Seattle’s student members return to school, Diaz, a junior at Seattle University, shares why she returns with a renewed confidence in her career path.

It’s easy to feel daunted and overwhelmed by the changing state of the journalism, especially at this point in time. But at the AAJA National Convention, the language and the feeling definitely exuded a renewed hope. As a nervous convention first-timer and forward-minded student, it was refreshing to be around so many journalists who were  excited about the future of journalism, who had enough passion to propel themselves past hurdles or who were gearing up for the hurdles they were facing: unemployment for seasoned vets, first forays into a fickle field for students and recent grads and the utter volatility of the industry for everyone.

And that’s not the only good news. The good news (and I think this is good news) is that journalism as we know it is being turned on its head. I jotted down a few quotes from some convention workshops that totally threw me for a loop, but they indicate exactly how journalism itself is being redefined and regenerated.

Get excited. The time in front of us is the perfect time to experiment, reexamine our roles and position yourself for the upper hand in the market.

“New media, digital media, perhaps even journalism don’t really apply as terms for what I do.” – John Bracken, Director of New Media at The Knight Foundation
Let go of those traditional conceptions of your job description. Regardless of what Bracken himself does, every journalist has to face the transitioning ambiguity of what journalism is, what media is and what audiences consider their sources of information.

“Audio is really a visual medium.” – Sora Newman, Senior Trainer at NPR
Though every format and every story is unique, the richest part of a converging media market is indeed the convergence. It’s not just about the parts sitting beside each other but the way they meld and speak to each other. Newman and the others on the Audio Storytelling for Print Journalists panel challenged participants to look beyond the verbal portion of audio stories and to capture the ambient sounds and bits that paint that “picture” for the listener.

“Content is king, but collaboration is queen. If you think of a chessboard, the king is the most important, but, let’s be honest, the queen is most powerful.” – David Cohn, Spot.us
The most hopeful thing to hear over and over again at the convention was the call to collaborate, a particular theme of the hyperlocal news panel featuring Cohn. Especially as citizen journalism grows and culture’s demand for transparency and immediacy grows, the spirit of collaboration not only grows in importance but in creativity. Spot.us, for instance, uses a unique model of collaborative funding — freelancers can pitch stories, and community members can pitch in the cash.

“It’s not about what the staff is doing. It’s about what the reader is experiencing.” – Wasim Ahmad, Multimedia Journalist and Assistant Professor at Stonybrook University
So often we get caught up in what all of this change means for our jobs and our futures, but journalists should really be mindful of what the changing media landscape means for the audience — not only in how it will change the way people receive information but also the way people interact with information and what they choose to do with it.

“The business of journalism is the business of relationships.” – Raja Abdulrahim, Staff Writer at Los Angeles Times
“You’re not just a journalist. You’re a human being.” – Eiji Yamashita
I put these two together because they pull at a similar issue. So often do we, in the pressure to remain objective, lose sight of the communities and people who are affected the most. It’s not impossible to be both empathetic and fair, and perhaps empathy is intrinsic to justice. Our work as journalists are strengthened by nurturing relationships and trust with the people around us.

“This is not news in one point in time. I want to tell a story with an arc.” – Christopher Wong, Filmmaker of Whatever It Takes
Especially with tools like Twitter, there’s a lot of hype around up-to-the-minute bites (or bytes) of news, quick snippets of information. And the reality is, there’s definitely a demand for that in this fast-paced world. Yet as we reimagine different ways to make the news, we gain more opportunities to harness the power of a compelling story, something that isn’t just informative in an intellectual and utilitarian sense but something that speaks to the bigger picture.

AAJA Seattle student member: AAJA Voices was one of the most rewarding weeks of my life

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Peter Sessum’s mug shot for AAJA Voices

This post was written by Peter Sessum, an AAJA Seattle student member. Sessum recently was one of 20 students to participate in AAJA Voices. He received training and mentoring on a variety of media platforms to cover the AAJA National Convention, which was held last month in Los Angeles. Sessum, a three-time recipient of the Northwest Journalists of Color Scholarship, last wrote about the chapter’s recent innovation salon on Twitter for the AAJA Seattle website.

I have benefited from AAJA more than anyone else I know. Workshops, scholarships and of course the mentorships. There is one thing that wraps it all up in one neat little package: The AAJA Voices Convention News Project (CNP). For a week in Los Angeles, students benefited from everything AAJA has to offer. I was lucky enough to be one of them.

If the convention is a sprint for most convention goers, for the Voices staff, it is a marathon that started long before registration.Twenty students were selected to be part of CNP. Once selected, we got to work. There were webinars that needed to be completed and story assignment ideas. We were paired with a professional mentor. Mine was William Wan from the Washington Post. I couldn’t have asked for one better.

By the time I arrived in LA, I already had one story in the can. I had written my column about how I came to be a journalist. After that, I just needed two more in two different media. This is what separated the journalists from the writers. You have to do research to know what story ideas to pitch. There were still a lot of unknowns heading to the airport, but excitement was high.

There is a saying among Navy SEALs, “The only easy day was yesterday.” For the convention, the only easy day was Monday. After all the students trickled in, introductions were made and we headed out to dinner. It would be the last time everyone would eat together outside the newsroom until after the convention.

Voices Director Marian Liu quickly laid down the law. Three students failed to complete the assigned tasks prior to the convention and were told not to come. From the start, Liu kept the group on task. Every day was full. If we weren’t working on a story, there were tours, guest speakers or some form of training or networking. One day was spent at The Los Angeles Times.

With so many moving parts I have no idea how Liu kept it all straight. It was more coordinated than most military operations. Nothing got past our leader. As soon as a student would finish a task, Liu would be calling their name with something new to do.

When the convention started on Wednesday I felt like I was in the eye of the storm. Despite furiously working against an ever impending deadline, tweeting updates for AAJA and Voices and trying to work on future stories, I felt calm. For me, it was not my most stressful newsroom.

The days were filled. Something was scheduled just about every minute. Fortunately, one of my stories was about Katelin Chow, an AAJA Seattle student member, NJC scholarship recipient and a first-time convention goer. Following her got me out of the newsroom and into a couple workshops.

When recruiters talk about elevator speeches, they mean it literally. When heading to my next event, I found myself in an elevator with a person from USA Today. I had missed her at the job fair. In the six-floor ride down, I was able to give her my pitch and we exchanged cards.

I was one of the lucky few who not only got out of the newsroom, but also had some time at night to get some downtime. I was able to spend time with members of AAJA Seattle. And I even found time to make some new friends. My roommate, however, was working far into the night.

National conventions are an Olympics of a conference. While most spring from event to event, the members of the voices project run a week long marathon. By the end of it, I was running like a well-oiled machine. One being operated by a rabid, schizophrenic badger.

Despite all the hard work, the Voices project was one of the most rewarding weeks of my life. I left feeling prepared for next year when I graduate and will be looking for a job. I also picked up some skills to make me a better journalist. As a side bonus, I had some fun.

I would encourage anyone to get involved with the program. Professionals will be able to mentor the next generation of journalists — some of who are really impressive. For students, the CNP is a great experience. They select the best AAJA has to offer, but only the best of those who apply.

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