FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 16, 2020
AAJA 2020 Awards Ceremony & End of Year Celebration
Presented by Joie Chen, Pablo Iglesias, Michelle Ye He Lee, and Nicole Dungca
WASHINGTON, DC – The Asian American Journalists Association announced the 2020 awards recipients in its first-ever virtual celebration on Friday, December 11, 2020 at 8 p.m. ET. Watch a recording of the event here, including Vic Lee’s acceptance speech for this year’s Lifetime Achievement Award. This year, AAJA also launched awards.aaja.org, a microsite that features present award recipients and archives past awardees.
The AAJA Journalism Excellence Awards winners announcement was followed by the announcement of Member Awards winners. The event invites reflections on 2020 and toasts to the new year––which marks the 40th Anniversary of the founding of the Asian American Journalists Association.
Watch a recording of the event here, including Vic Lee’s acceptance speech for this year’s Lifetime Achievement Award.
This year, AAJA also launched awards.aaja.org, a microsite that features present award recipients and archives past awardees. View the 2020 award recipients below and find more information on awards.aaja.org
Journalism Excellence Awards Recipients:
- Student Journalism, AAPI Issues: Kiran Misra, “‘Did they send us here to die?’: Housing rights at a crossroads in India’s capital” (Pulitzer Center).
- Student Journalism, General: Jack Harris, “Young, small, but mighty: Skateboarder Sky Brown shreds path toward Olympics” (Los Angeles Times).
- Written Journalism, AAPI Issues: Jaweed Kaleem, “Sikh Drivers are Transforming U.S. Trucking” (Los Angeles Times).
- Written Journalism, General: Erika Fry, “Epidemic of fear: How the trouble-ridden debut of a breakthrough vaccine sparked a panic” (Fortune); Peter Waldman, “As China anxiety rises in U.S., fears of new Red Scare emerge” (Bloomberg).
- Radio/Audio Journalism, AAPI Issues: Christine Nguyen, “Vietnamese immigrants care for parents with dementia, amidst stigma” (KALW).
- Radio/Audio Journalism, General: “Building a Wall Out of Red Tape” by Sinduja Rangarajan, Brett Myers, Dave Gilson, Teresa Cotsirilos and James West (Mother Jones, Reveal News)
- TV/Online Journalism, AAPI Issues: Aarne Heikkila, “Hiding in Plain Sight” (The Today Show)
- TV/Online Journalism, General: Michael Yam, “From Duck to Hero” (Pac-12 Networks)
- Multimedia Journalism, AAPI Issues: “Soldiering On” by Jayna Omaye, Aaron K. Yoshino, Janelle Kalawe-Ching, and Katie Kenny (HONOLULU Magazine)
- Multimedia Journalism, General: “Hong Kong on Edge” by Shelly Banjo, Blake Schmidt, Iain Marlow, Natalie Lung, Chloe Whiteaker, Alfred Liu, Annie Lee, Adrian Leung, Hannah Dormido, Demetrios Pogkas, Kiuyan Wong, Stephen Engle, Sebastian Chau, Kelly Belknap, Anna Luk, and Matt Soto (Bloomberg)
- Dith Pran Photo Award: First Place: Mengshin Lin; Second Place: Vritti Rashi Goel; Third Place: Young Kim
Member Excellence Awards Recipients:
- President’s Award: Chapter Boards and Affinity Group Leaders
- Member of the Year: Hieu Gray
- Chapter President of the Year: Mallika Kallingal and Willougby Mariano, AAJA-Atlanta
- Chapter of the Year: AAJA-LA
- ELP Outstanding Leadership Award: Maria Mercader
- Lifetime Achievement Award: Vic Lee
- Leadership In Diversity Award: Journalists of Color Slack Admin Team
AAJA thanks the 2020 award judges (listed below), as well as the nominees who submitted entries for award categories.
- Written Journalism: Esther Gim, Kellie Hwang, Stephanie Lin, Josh DuLac, Marian Liu
- Student Journalism: Ben Bartenstein, Neal Justin, Alyssa Jeong Perry, Arelis Hernandez, Julia M. Chan
- TV/Online Journalism: E. Samantha Cheng, Chris Casquejo, Carolyn Hong, Shawn Chitnis
- Radio/Audio Journalism: Allen Peng, Lee Uehara, Phil Nacionales
- Multimedia Journalism: Thomas Oide, Darrell Miho, Dolly Li
- ELP Outstanding Leadership: Tom Huang, Emma Carew Grovum, Josh DuLac
AAJA thanks the National Board of Directors (listed below), for selecting member award recipients.
- President: Michelle Lee
- Senior Vice President: Nicole Dungca
- Vice President of Journalism Programs: Kris Vera-Phillips
- Vice President of Civic Engagement: Pia Sarkar (2019-2020 term); Julia B. Chan (VP elect 2021-2022)
- Vice President of Finance: Ted Han (2019-2020 term); Jin Ding (VP elect 2021-2022)
- Vice President of Communications: Shirley Qiu
- Small/Medium Chapter Representatives: Bobby Caina Calvan, Bethany Ao
- Large Chapter Representative: Henry Fuhrmann
- At-Large Chapter Representatives: Elizabeth Yuan, Yuri Nagano
Published by