Keeping AAJA financially strong, re-embracing ethnic media, restructuring the roles for national VPs, being an ongoing hiring resource and being secret agents for AAJA’s MediaWatch program are included in today’s ideas for keeping AAJA extraordinary recap:

I believe that we all should consider ourselves secret agents for AAJA’s MediaWatch program. By “secret agents,” I mean each of us should always have our antennae up for offensive, inappropriate or outrageous media coverage of Asians, Asian Americans, our communities, our issues or AAJA itself. Read more

I believe AAJA needs to be a year-round hiring resource for those actively looking for new jobs. Journalists whose careers are in transition need more than a heads-up about job openings; they also need encouragement, advice on highlighting their qualifications, and the enthusiastic support of the worldwide AAJA family. Read more

I believe that each of us has a responsibility to help keep AAJA financially strong. Fund-raising isn’t solely for the AAJA National Treasurer, Executive Director and National President. We who have benefited from AAJA need to decide that we will help raise money, find a new revenue-generating idea, write a check - or ideally, do all three. Did you know that for most nonprofits, the single biggest source of income is individual contributions? Read more

We need to re-embrace members of the ethnic news media and invite them back into the AAJA family. When I first joined the AAJA National Board in 1996, we had several ethnic media executives on the board who added richly to our cultural diversity and our understanding of the business side of the news industry. As mainstream media companies try different revenue models, we need to renew our ties with ethnic media and invite them to sign on as AAJA corporate members. Read more

In recent years, some people have proposed adding a third vice president to our five officers, a National Vice President for Digital, to recognize members whose work appears primarily or exclusively online. My concern is that when former AAJA President Victor Panichkul proposed the current 11-member Governing Board, he intended that the six Governing Board members elected from among the Chapter Representatives would outnumber (and could outvote) the five national officers. Adding another officer would create a 12-member Governing Board with the potential for tie votes.

Therefore, I’d like to propose that we recast the two vice presidential roles as “National Vice President for Print & Digital” and “National Vice President for Broadcast & Visual.” Read more