A Message from AAJA National President

Dear all,

Welcome to 2009.

We are in the midst of an industry’s evolution. The best news is that more people are reading and watching your stories than at any other point in history. But it has come at the high price of massive job cuts. In this time of uncertainty, I want to reassure you that AAJA is here for you.

We’re helping you get through difficult times and positioning you for the future by offering the following:

• We will again offer reduced membership dues to members who are laid off. We will again offer a number of free registrations to the national convention in Boston Aug. 12-15. That convention, “Road to Reinvention,” will focus on building new skills to thrive in a multimedia news environment.
• On Thursday, Jan. 22 at noon Pacific/3 p.m. Eastern, AAJA will hold a BlogTalkRadio conference call on “Journalism beyond the Traditional Newsroom,” to talk to print and broadcast journalists who reinvented their careers with online news ventures.
• We are forming two task forces: one focused on Reinvention, reinventing careers and the industry to ensure a future for all of you, and one focused on the Power of One fundraising campaign, to ensure a future for Asian American journalists.
• AAJA will continue to urge newsroom leaders to retain journalists of color during cutbacks. The challenge our industry faces is a challenge of diversity ­– diversity of skills, ideas, products, ownership, business models. Diversity is not the problem, it is the answer.

Thank you to 2007-08 President Jeanne Mariani-Belding, Vice President for Broadcast Jam Sardar and Treasurer Cynthia Wang for serving as national officers these past two years. Thank you to our 2009 national officers, board members and chapter leaders, our new executive director Ellen Endo and our national staff.

And most of all, thank you for your support of AAJA and for all of your good work in journalism. We will get through this together.

Please don’t forget to renew your membership. I look forward to working with and for you in the coming year. Send me your ideas at schan@seattletimes.com or 206-464-2958.

In unity,

Sharon Chan