About ELP
The Asian American Journalists Association is proud to provide a program to help Asian American and Pacific Islander journalists become outstanding newsroom leaders and executives.
The AAJA Executive Leadership Program (ELP) looks at how Asian American and Pacific Islander values relate to high-level decision-making processes and leadership development. The two-session program explores the responsibilities and challenges in the newsroom. Each participant will develop individual career paths to leadership positions. There are 381 graduates of the Executive Leadership Program since the program began in 1995.
In a survey of Executive Leadership Program graduates, 55% of all respondents received 1 or more PROMOTIONS within their company or at new companies. Of those who received promotions, 83% rated the program 3 or above on a scale of 1-5 with 5 being the highest, when asked about the impact of their ELP training on their promotions.
The AAJA Executive Leadership Program is founded and directed by Dinah Eng, columnist for Scripps Howard News Service, freelance writer and former AAJA National President.
The next ELP Introductory Session will take place March 10-14, 2010 in New York City. The Newspaper Association of America Foundation offers a minority fellowship to send a newspaper journalist to attend ELP.
The 2010 ELP Introductory Session is funded by a grant from the McCormick Foundation. The Introductory Session is hosted by People, with additional support from NY1 News and The New York Times. The ELP reception is sponsored by Google.
Read about Marian Liu's experiences in the 2009 program here.
For additional information, please contact Albert Lee.Newsroom Statistics
Unfortunately, as with other communities of color, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) are underrepresented in this country's newsrooms. The American Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE) 2009 newsroom employment survey showed that 458 of the newspapers responding to the survey had no minorities on their full-time staff. This number has been growing since 2006. AAPIs make up only 3.14% of all newsroom employees, down from 3.22% in 2008, the first time the percentage has decreased since information has been gathered starting in 2001.
In broadcast, the percentage of AAPI’s in television newsrooms throughout the country is 3%, up from 2.7% in 2008 according to a 2009 survey released by the Radio and Television News Directors Association (RTNDA) and Hofstra University. However, AAPI television news directors comprise 1.1%, down from 1.7% in 2008.
The data covering radio newsrooms shows that 0.6% of the radio newsroom workforce is Asian American, up from 0.4% in 2008, but down from 1.1% in 2007 and 1.8% in 2006. Only 1.1% of radio news directors are Asian American, up from 0.8% in 2008, but down from 1.9% in 2007.
Read more about the 2009 ASNE Newsroom Employment survey.
Read more about the 2009 RTNDA Survey of Minorities and Women.