The Holiday Scoop

[Organizers and emcees kick it at The Holiday Scoop, an all-Seattle media party to raise money for the Northwest Journalists of Color Scholarship on Dec. 17, 2010 at Nectar: Sharon Chan, Seattle Times technology reporter; David Boardman, Seattle Times executive editor; Candace Heckman, senior editor at Nyhus Communications; Bill Radke, KIRO FM Radio host and Lori Matsukawa, KING 5 anchor. Photo by Erika Schultz]

By Sharon Pian Chan and Candace Heckman
AAJA National President and National Treasurer

Journalists packed the house at The Holiday Scoop, the first all-Seattle media party for broadcast, radio and online journalists on Friday, Dec. 17.

More than 200 people broke out their holiday finest for the party at Nectar, a nightclub in Seattle’s Fremont neighborhood, representing current and former journalists from more than 40 news outlets in the Puget Sound.

[Seattle Times executive editor David Boardman skewers Seattle media in a poem at The Holiday Scoop, which he help organize. Photo by Erika Schultz]

The highlight of the night? Seattle Times executive editor David Boardman’s version of “Twas the Night before Christmas” skewering local media, LOLcats and newsmakers. If you missed it, it will live on only in our memories.

[Emcees Bill Radke and Lori Matsukawa deliver a poem about Seattle “snowmageddon.” Photo by Erika Schultz]

Emcees Lori Matsukawa of KING5 and Bill Radke of KIRO FM Radio opened the event, exchanging some very special holiday gifts with each other (also for our memories). They also recognized newsrooms that won national awards this year: The Seattle Times (Pulitzer Prize), Puget Sound Business Journal (Pulitzer Prize finalist), Seattle Post-Intelligencer (Knight-Risser Prize), KIRO FM Radio (RTDNA), KOMO TV (RTDNA), MSNBC.com (ONA) and West Seattle Blog (ONA).

The event benefited AAJA Seattle’s Northwest Journalists of Color Scholarship, a 24-year program that has awarded more than 100 scholarships to student journalists. NJC scholarship winners Rachel Solomon and Peter Sessum volunteered at the event. Other former winners also showed up: Seattle Times religion reporter Janet Tu and Seattle Magazine online managing editor Karen
Johnson.

[Seattle Times reporter Dominic Gates (center) and Sports Press NW soccer reporter Stanley Holmes were among the 200 journalists who attended at The Holiday Scoop, an all-Seattle media party to raise money for the Northwest Journalists of Color Scholarship. Photo by Erika Schultz.]

Here are all the newsrooms represented: 710 ESPN Seattle, AOL FanHouse, AOLNews, Associated Press, CBS Interactive, Crosscut, Intersect, InvestigateWest, KBCS 91.3 FM Radio, KING TV, KIRO Radio, KIRO TV, KUOW/NPR, Maple Leaf Life, MSN Money, MSNBC.com, My Green Lake, Neighborlogs, Northwest Vietnamese News, Puget Sound Business Journal, Q13 FOX, Ravenna Blog, Renton Reporter, Patch.com, Reuters, Roosevelt Neighborhood Blog, Seattle Bride, Seattle Business, Seattle magazine, Seattle PostGlobe, Seattle Weekly, Seattlepi.com, Sportspress Northwest, The Associated Press, The Daily (Everett) Herald, The (UW) Daily, The Seattle Times, The (Tacoma) News Tribune, Three Sheets Northwest, USA Today online, Xconomy, Northwest Asian Weekly.

The masterminds behind the event were David Boardman, AAJA National Treasurer Candace Heckman and AAJA National President Sharon Chan. See you next year? Maybe.

If you have feedback for the event, send it to candaceheckman@gmail.com or schan@seattletimes.com.