The Asian American Journalists Association on paper is a professional organization. But for our members, AAJA is a community. We provide resources for our members to succeed but most importantly we support each other not just as media professionals, but as family.
Today I’m excited to announce my candidacy for AAJA’s Vice President of Journalism Programs. The position is responsible for making sure our signature programs — Voices, JCamp, ELP, Mentor Match, etc — remain at the top of their game. I’ll look to make it my personal responsibility that these programs are well-funded and are unblocked from doing what they do best.
I’m seeking your vote because I want to make sure more of our members will have the opportunity to get the same experience that I’ve had from AAJA and from our signature programs.
In 2011, I was introduced to AAJA through Voices. I was a freshman in college and unsure of what I wanted to pursue as a career. But Voices sealed my passion to continue in journalism. The Voices mentors gave me the confidence that I could get a job after graduation and if I couldn’t get one right away, they’d be there to help me.
In the years since Voices, I’ve seen my classmates grow into their careers. And today I want to make sure AAJA can provide even more resources and programs for mid-career and veteran journalists to continue to succeed and rise in the newsroom ranks.
As the National Convention Programming Chair for the last two years, I made sure we had adequate programming for journalists of all experience levels, and programs that spoke to more than just traditional mediums.
Additionally, I’ll look into new ways for our members, who cannot attend our annual convention or other events, to participate in our signature programs.
I’ll also work to expand our offerings to include more members by bringing them to the chapter-level with help from the National Board and our national convention programming committee.
It would be a great honor to serve AAJA as its next VP of Journalism Programs and I hope I can earn your support in the upcoming election.
Platform:
- I’ll look into new ways for our members, who cannot attend our annual convention or other events, to participate in our signature programs.
- I’ll also work to expand our offerings to include more members by bringing them to the chapter-level with help from the National Board and our national convention programming committee.
- I’ll work to ensure our signature programs are well-funded, cleared from any blockers restricting them from getting the best resources, and that the program chairs have everything they need to train journalists of all ages and experiences.
Experience:
- AAJA National Convention Programming Chair for the past two conferences and our upcoming Atlanta conference.
- Editorial engineer at Vox Media in New York City where I work on the cutting edge of storytelling on the web.
- Adjunct professor at Fordham University in Bronx, New York where I teach data literacy and visualization.
- Google News Initiative trainer, where I travel to dozens of newsrooms, conferences and classrooms every year to teach thousands of journalists of all ages how to utilize free Google tools in their workflows.
- AAJA Voices 2011 alumnus. I wouldn’t be here today without Voices and AAJA.
Voting in the 2018 AAJA Special Election:
Ballots for this special election are open until Friday, Oct. 26 at 3 p.m. ET. The link to vote is here and the password to view the ballot is VP2019. For simple instructions on voting, see this post on how to vote in this AAJA election.
Not a member, but still want to vote?
Join us here for as low as $25 and attend our next national convention in Atlanta from July 31 to Aug 3, 2019.
