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February 2020
Dear AAJA Family,

We have some exciting news-- AAJA has gone bicoastal! While our home will always be California, and we will maintain a presence there, we now have a second home base in Washington, D.C. This is a strategic move to further support AAJA’s mission and membership. Being bicoastal means we can adapt and be nimble while staying true to our West Coast roots.

Please also join me in welcoming new members to the #AAJAFamily. Gilles Demptos joins AAJA-Asia as Director of Asia Pacific. Daniel Garcia, our Program Associate, will now be based in Washington, D.C., and April Siruno and Jessica Xiao, a proud JCamp alum, will join us and bolster our membership engagement, communications, and operations. 

Convention is around the corner, and while registration is not quite ready, our deadlines are up on aaja20.org for your planning purposes. Applications for student scholarships are now open, and we are also accepting nominations and submissions for our annual 2020 AAJA Journalism Excellence Awards and Lifetime Achievement Award. For a full listing of all scholarships, internships, and awards, visit our main Submittable page at: https://aaja.submittable.com/submit . 

Last but not least, this week in AAPI history marks the Day of Remembrance, which commemorates February 19, 1942, the day President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed E.O 9066. E.O. 9066 sent approximately 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry, nearly two-thirds of whom were American citizens, to "relocation" camps scattered across western states. Doris Truong, former AAJA president, writes a poignant piece on the power of words for Poynter Institute. Additional coverage includes this NPR piece on California’s apology to Japanese Americans as well as this WaPo piece with graphs and data .

Read more below on our guidance on coverage of the coronavirus and featured updates from programs, affinity groups, and your fellow members. As always, we're open to feedback on how we can best serve you.

Naomi Tacuyan Underwood
Executive Director
N
AAJA NATIONAL NEWS
Thanks to AAJA Seoul for summarizing the key points with their social media infographics !
We’ve prepared guidance for how to cover the coronavirus without invoking xenophobic and racist stereotypes.

  • Use coronavirus instead of naming the region of origin

  • Avoid using generic images of Chinatown to represent the virus

  • Avoid using images of Asian people wearing masks to represent the virus

Please share widely with your newsrooms and colleagues, and let us know how you’ve used it in your work.

(Read through some first-person coverage of the coronavirus in our members' reading list below. )
Next on Your #AAJA20 National Convention To-Do List:
Karaoke Night or Happy Hour Mixer?
Has the writer of this newsletter changed? Demand answers by submitting your AAJA20 conference proposal!
Just kidding - or are we? Submit your conference proposal by this Sunday, February 23.

Let us know how to make #AAJA20 programming valuable, insightful, and applicable to the modern newsroom and media spaces. What topics and which speakers are you itching to hear more (or less!) from? What skills do you want to level up? What skills do you want to share? We want to know!

Also...
#AAJA20 Journalism Excellence Awards
Now Open for Submissions
AAJA is now accepting entries and nominations for the 2020 Journalism Excellence Awards and the 2020 Lifetime Achievement Award.Winners will be announced at #AAJA20. Submit your entries by  Wednesday, April 22 .

AAJA offers two award categories. If your piece covers AAPI communities, you may submit it under the AAPI Issues category. Otherwise, you may submit it under the General Excellence category. 

Categories for both Excellence in AAPI Issues & General Excellence:

  • Written Journalism
  • Television/Online Video
  • Radio/Audio
  • Multimedia
  • Student Journalism

Eligibility Requirements : Please visit https://aaja.submittable.com/submit to review each category's requirements and criteria. Each entry may only be submitted into one category. 

MEMBER & SUPPORTER NEWS
On Our Reading List from the #AAJAFamily
What is your best caption for this image of Bong Joon Ho that your editor won’t let you publish? Email us. We won’t tell. Photo cred: Getty Images / Amy Sussman



  • Julie Yoon of BBC Korea’s photo-essay on banjihas, a type of living space significant in the film for depicting class differences. She describes one banjiha: “It gets so little light that even [the resident’s] little succulent plant couldn't survive.” (Slight spoilers)



 
Did you produce (or consume) some great journalism recently?
Put your work on our radar , so we can feature you next.
#AAJAKudos
Congratulations to Elaine Ramirez on her new role at CoinDesk ! We look forward to your work illuminating the world of digital finance and blockchain tech.
Congratulations to Shirley Qiu, AAJA's VP of Communications, who has been accepted into Poynter’s 2020 Leadership Academy for Women in Media .
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT & CAREER OPPORTUNITIES
AAJA's Sports Task Force Teams up with NABJ, NAHJ, & APSE
at NBA All-Star Weekend
This past weekend, AAJA's Sports Task Force teamed up with NABJ, NAHJ, and APSE during NBA All-Star Weekend for a series of dynamic conversations for young journalists and students. The pilot Team Up program, a series of conversations on increasing diversity in sports journalism and professional development strategies, had more than 40 attendees, made up of both students and young professionals from all three diversity organizations, and representing print, digital, and broadcast outlets.

Thank you to the AAJA Sports Task Force and member Michael Huang for spearheading a great program for aspiring sports journalists of color!
AAJA Graduates 3rd Cohort of
Catalyst Media Entrepreneurs of Color
In January, AAJA held its third Catalyst, a three-day bootcamp for aspiring media entrepreneurs of color. We are so proud of all of our media founders who participated in Catalyst this year. Thanks so much to our program co-leads Paul Cheung, Yvonne Leow, and Sharon Chan, as well as the rest of the coaches and speakers. Thanks to Northwestern University for hosting us this year. Read more about the program here .
Catalyst Class of 2020 with #AAJAFamily
Northwestern University, San Francisco
January 29-31, 2020
Open AAJA Opportunities for Students




  • Apply for Voices 2020 by March 22, an all-expenses paid student journalism fellowship (in DC).

  • Apply for JCamp 2020 by March 29, a weeklong journalism program for high school students (in DC).

Jobs

  • In February, 118 new jobs were posted on the AAJA Jobs Board, including at the Wall Street Journal, The New Republic, This American Life, CalMatters, and more. Log in today to review current job postings.

  • Have you joined Mathison yet? This AAJA partner and diversity talent marketplace seeks to help employers focus on a skills-based approach to hiring by eliminating identity biases.

  • Don’t forget to regularly check the #aaja-jobs slack channel as well.
What did we miss? Let us know. Submit your news and updates here .
 (If it helps, don’t think of it as bragging, but as reporting the facts.)
Asian American Journalists Association | [ https://www.aaja.org/ ]