AAJA Announces 2022 Internship Grant Winners: Anjali Huynh Receives William Woo, Omar Rashad Receives Stanford Chen

The Asian American Journalists Association is proud to announce two of our 2022 internship grant recipients. Anjali Huynh is the recipient of the William Woo Print and Online News Internship Grant and Omar Rashad is the recipient of the Stanford Chen Internship Grant. Our internship grants provide financial assistance to students completing a journalism internship. 

“Unpaid and low-paid internships are major systemic hurdles that prevent many aspiring journalists of color from succeeding in the industry,” said AAJA director of programs and partnerships Waliya Lari. “AAJA’s internship grants allow students like Anjali and Omar to thrive as journalists and ambassadors of inclusive and representative journalism and newsrooms.”

Congratulations again! Read more about the winners and AAJA’s scholarships program below. Applications for the Broadcast Internship Grants are still open through May 31; apply here

WILLIAM WOO PRINT AND ONLINE NEWS INTERNSHIP GRANT

The William Woo Print and Online Journalism Grant supports AAPIs pursuing journalism careers in print or digital news who have secured a summer internship. The $2,000 grant is to defray living costs during the internship. The grant is named in honor of William Woo, the first Asian American to edit a major American newspaper (the St. Louis Post-Dispatch) in August 1996. The 2022 recipient is Anjali Huynh

“I’m incredibly honored to have received this award and grateful for the opportunities it provides in easing my transition to a new city for a summer internship,” Huynh said. “AAJA has been an invaluable part of my journalism endeavors thus far, and I’m excited to learn more from and give back to this amazing organization as I further my career.”

Huynh is a junior at Emory University majoring in political science and sociology. She currently is a digital politics intern at NBC News and recently finished her term as executive editor of Emory’s student publication, The Emory Wheel, where she oversaw the news and diversity, equity, and inclusion sections. 

Originally from Iowa, Anjali is a member of AAJA, NLGJA and SAJA who hopes to spend her career examining the intersections of race and policy and uplifting marginalized community voices at the local and national levels. She previously worked for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and CNN and has covered everything from national politicians at the Iowa State Fair to affordable housing and crime in Atlanta. This summer, she will intern in the Boston Globe’s metro section and participate in the POLITICO Journalism Institute.

Learn more about Anjali here: TwitterLinkedInOnline Portfolio

STANFORD CHEN INTERNSHIP GRANT

The Stanford Chen Internship Grant awards $2,000 to a college junior, senior or graduate student who has secured an internship at a news outlet. The 2022 recipient is Omar Rashad. 

“Moving to a metropolitan city can be daunting, especially with expensive housing costs,” Rashad said. “This scholarship will undoubtedly help me take care of my basic needs and support me in doing my best work over the summer.” 

Rashad is a senior studying journalism at California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo. Over the last four years, his reporting has focused on the intersections of state laws, higher education, housing and homelessness. He is currently wrapping up a stint as the Data and Investigations Editor at the student-run Mustang News, where he oversaw, edited and reported data-driven and investigative stories on a range of subjects at Cal Poly. 

In the summer of 2022, Omar will be headed to the Seattle Times as its metro reporting intern. He completed past reporting internships at the San Francisco Chronicle and CalMatters. Before those internships, he served as the Editor-in-Chief of The Union, the student-run newspaper at El Camino College in Torrance, California. He is a proud community college graduate and alumnus of AAJA JCamp. Home for Omar is Hawthorne, California, a suburb of Los Angeles.

Rashad published a piece for Poynter in 2020 about his experiences as a community college student seeking a career in journalism, and the elitism he faced along the way. Both Rashad and scholarship judges said that institutional discrimination exists in the industry against community college students. Rashad said that this internship grant will leave him in a better financial position as he continues his journalism career post-grad.

Learn more about Omar here: Twitter | LinkedIn | Portfolio 

ABOUT AAJA’S SCHOLARSHIPS 

AAJA annually offers up to $20,000 in scholarships and grants to journalism students to help offset the costs of education, internships, living expenses and other opportunities. These scholarships are made possible by supporters such as AAJA members, allies and generous donors. Thank you to our scholarship judging teams for these two internship grants: Lori Matsukawa, Maya Blackmun, Allen Cheng and Joann Ng for the Stanford Chen, and Ashley Nguyen, Raymund Flandez and Amy Chen for the William Woo. To learn more about AAJA scholarships or donate, visit https://www.aaja.org/news-and-resources/scholarships-internships/

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