AAJA MediaWatch Committee Bios

MediaWatch Committee Co-Chair MAYA BLACKMUN is a reporter for The Oregonian, covering a suburban school district, public safety and family issues. She is on AAJA's national governing board and joined the MediaWatch Committee in 2006.

MediaWatch Committee Co-Chair CHERYL LU-LIEN TAN is a Wall Street Journal staff writer who covers fashion, retail and luxury goods. Prior to the Wall Street Journal, she was senior fashion writer at In Style magazine in New York and before that, she covered fashion and entertainment for the Baltimore Sun. She started her career at the Sun as a metro reporter and covered police and politics before joining the paper's features staff. She is on the National Governing Board of AAJA.

MURALI BALAJI is a doctoral fellow at Penn State University and author of two books, including House of Tinder (iUniverse, 2003) and The Professor and The Pupil: The Politics of W.E.B. Du Bois and Paul Robeson (University of Missouri Press, 2006). He is also co-editor of Desi Rap, a soon-to-be-released book of essays examining the impact of hip-hop on South Asian Americans. He was a newspaper reporter for six years, working for the St. Paul Pioneer Press and the Wilmington News Journal. He has lectured at various colleges and universities, and, in 2005, was honored by the Goldey-Beacom College in Delaware with the "Outstanding Educator Award" for his efforts in media advocacy.

RAY HANANIA is a veteran Chicago City Hall reporter and regional columnist. He currently writes a weekly column for Creators Syndicate analyzing Middle East issues, and for several newspapers including Newsday, the Orlando Sentinel and the Arlington Heights Daily Herald. Hanania is also senior columnist for the Southwest News-Herald in Chicago and managing editor and columnist for the SWnewsHerald.com web site. He is a founder of the National Arab American Journalists Association and twice winner of the SPJ Lisagor Award for column writing.

ABE KWOK serves as AAJA National Vice President for Print and is online news editor at azcentral. He served as AAJA National Vice President for Print for 2004-2005.

JEANNE MARIANI-BELDING is AAJA National President. She is editorial and opinion editor at The Honolulu Advertiser.

JESSIE MANGALIMAN is immigration writer for the San Jose Mercury News and a 2006-2007 member of the AAJA National Advisory Board.

JEANNIE PARK was most recently executive editor of People magazine and one of the highest-ranking Asian American editors in the magazine industry. Previously, she was executive editor of In Style magazine. She joined Entertainment Weekly in 1992 as senior editor of the magazine’s television coverage and was promoted to assistant managing editor in 1995. She has been actively involved with AAJA, serving as National Secretary from 1991-93, and was the founding president of the New York Chapter. In 1998, she received the AAJA Special Recognition Award.

JAM SARDAR ia a correspondent for the Comcast Network in Philadelphia. Prior to that, Sardar worked at stations in Grand Rapids and Lansing, Michigan, and Lafayette, Indiana. He served as president of the AAJA Michigan Chapter during its "probationary year" and helped lead the group to full chapter status. During his first three years at AAJA, he played an active role both in his chapter and at the national level, participating in convention panels and coordinating the 2004-05 Broadcast Mentor Program.

AKI SOGA, an At Large member of AAJA, is editorial page editor on the metro desk at The Burlington ( Vt.) Free Press, where he has worked for more than 10 years. He has previously served as the AAJA MediaWatch Committee chair, developing initial guidelines and responses for the committee.

HARI SREENIVASAN has been a member of AAJA’s Seattle, At Large, San Francisco and now New York Chapters. He has also handled media watch issues for the South Asian Journalists Association while he was on their board, and written for News Watch out of San Francisco. He currently works as an anchor for ABC News Now in New York. Prior employers include KTVU, WNCN, KAPP and his own production company in San Francisco.

FRANK WITSIL is the AAJA Michigan Chapter representative on the AAJA National Advisory Board. He is staff writer at the Detroit Free Press.

ESTHER WU is former AAJA National President. She is a freelance columnist. She began with the MediaWatch Committee in 2005.

HELEN ZIA is the author of “Asian American Dreams: The Emergence of an American People,” and co-author with Wen Ho Lee of “My Country Versus Me.” A veteran journalist, she is a contributing editor to Ms. magazine, where she was formerly executive editor. Her award-winning work has appeared in numerous publications and broadcasts. She received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from CUNY Law School for bringing important matters of law into public view and is an Expert Fellow with USC’s Justice and Journalism. She is the first recipient of AAJA’s Dr. Suzanne Ahn Award for coverage of Asian American civil rights and social justice issues. She graduated from Princeton University in public and international affairs, and is a member of its first graduating class of women.

Updated December 2007