David Ng's AAJA Convention Speech Moves People to Tears

In his speech at this year's Gala Scholarship and Awards Banquet in Miami, David Ng, executive editor of the New York Daily News, uses his life story to inspire other Asian American journalists to strive for the best in a very competitive newsroom environment.

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David Ng, the executive editor of the New York Daily News, delivered the keynote address at the convention's gala banquet in Miami on Friday, Aug. 4th. Here is an excerpt from his speech.

I was asked tonight to talk about my passion for journalism in this changing landscape. But instead of a speech let me tell you a story - I think it will do the job -- and, like any good reporter, I remembered to bring art.

Can we please dim the lights and put up the photograph.

On September 10th, 1963, long before the word "diversity" became a rallying cry in our society and within our own industry, this photo appeared on page one of the old Night Owl edition of The New York Daily News.

I suppose the editors decided to run it for no other reason than it was a good photo.

It was taken on the first day of school of the New York public school system. At first glance, you could say it's just another photo of a mother comforting a child who doesn't want to go to school.

But that little girl isn't crying because she had to go to school. She had just found out that she was too young to go to school with her older brother. She was devastated and broke down in tears. A Daily News photographer happened to be in the cafeteria, snapped the photo and it ran on page one.

That night, that family was besieged with phone calls. One friend after another called to say, "Do you know your picture is on the cover of the Daily News?"

That woman, the one in the photograph, took her son's hand and said we're going out to buy the newspaper. They left their Lower East Side tenement and walked into the night.

The little boy remembers standing on line with these huge men. The newspapers were clipped to a rope by old fashioned wooden clothes pins and he could see his mother's photo by the dim light of a 60 watt bulb dangling from a wire.

The little boy didn't speak English at the time. He couldn't even read the story that went with the photo of his mom and sister. But he never forgot that night -- and how important he felt. His family was on page one of the New York Daily News!

So let's fast forward from Sept. 10th, 1963 to tonight, from a street on the Lower East Side to this ballroom in Miami.

That woman in the photo is my mom. And that little boy - the one who grew up in a tenement and who had to learn to speak English -- stands before you tonight, the executive editor of the Daily News.

I tell you my story not because of what it says about me -- but what it says about us, as Asians and as Americans because the truth of the matter is this: My story is our story.

Maybe your story doesn't have its roots in Hong Kong or China. Maybe it's Korea or Japan, Vietnam or the Philippines. Maybe it's India or Pakistan. Maybe your story has its origins on another continent altogether.

Maybe it wasn't the first day of school or your first big promotion. Maybe it was your first day in a news room and you realized that there was no one who looked like you. Maybe it was the day you finally got a seat at the big conference table. And you realized you were the only woman.

Maybe it was your first day in this country.

Whatever it was, it was at that instant we learned an important lesson about who we are: That within the very finite space of a single human heart, there can live infinite amounts of hope and fear.

What does that have to do with us as journalists?

I know these are challenging times for us and our industry. But as Asians, as Americans and as journalists, it is part of us not to shy away from the unforeseen horizon, that which we cannot see, that which we have yet to discover, that which we fear but hope to master.

Our craft depends on the risks that we are willing to take, to embrace, knowing full well that accepting risks is in itself no guarantee we will succeed -- but ignoring them will certainly doom us to failure.

And the risks are worth taking because we need to be reminded tonight that what we do is important -- very important -- whether we tell stories in ink, on the airwaves or through streams of digital data because not only do I believe that journalism is writing the first draft of history, I believe that journalism is the narrative of this democracy.

In the past year or so, in various ways, I have been asked how a kid from the Lower East Side winds up being a top-ranking editor at one of the nation's largest papers.

I am reminded by this photograph that hangs in my office.

It's a reminder of how that woman left the only home she ever knew for a country where she had no family or friends and where she barely spoke the language, and that the entire sum of all her possessions is less than what many of you have in your pockets tonight. And I think about all the risks she took, all her hopes, all her fears.

I tell you this not because of what it says about me, but it says about us. I didn't come here tonight just to tell you my story. I came here to remind you - with all your heart - to remember yours because, in the end, the truth is this: Your story is our story.

Thank you for your time tonight.