Yung AAJA will be holding elections until Monday, December 31 at 11:59pm ET. You must be a current dues-paying member to be eligible to vote. You may only vote once. You may choose one candidate for each track: Print, Digital and Broadcast. You may also write in candidates if you so choose.
We are looking to elect three committee heads:
- Print, focusing primarily on writing, copy editing, print reporting skills
- Digital, focusing on social media, digital video/photography, audience engagement, non-linear video/audio editing
- Broadcast, focusing on live production, on-air reporting, MMJing, video/audio reporting, hosting/anchoring
Duties as Committee Head will include:
- Organizing one skillbuilding event per calendar year (in-person or livestream)
- Organizing one social event per calendar year (in-person)
- Coordinating with the affinity group director to put on a panel at the AAJA National Convention
- Finding job postings, internships and fellowships relevant to committee tracks
Candidates will occupy this position for one year with the term beginning January 1, 2019.
VOTE NOW
Without further ado, the candidates:
Heather J. Chin is a freelance journalist who writes and edits local and breaking news, health, the arts, politics, Asian America and more. She has contributed to Flipboard, NBC News, The Village Voice, Edible Brooklyn, Technically Brooklyn, PBS, Kings County Politics, Brooklyn Reporter, The Philadelphia Inquirer and other publications. Heather currently serves as AAJA-New York chapter secretary and is a grateful alum of AAJA’s ELP and Catalyst programs. She tweets at @heatherjchin and runs a newsletter called “What’s Up In Asian America.”
I’m Crystal Duan and I’m a Portland native currently adjusting to Southern California as a legislative reporter at the Santa Clarita Valley Signal. I graduated from the University of Missouri in 2017, interned as a Pulliam Fellow at The Indianapolis Star, reported in Washington, D.C. during the 2016 election, covered small towns throughout North Dakota and covered features for The Minneapolis Star Tribune. My background is in investigative and print journalism, so you can ask me about the ins and outs of working for newspapers. I also know a thing or two about digital, as I also write for Bustle part-time.
DIGITAL
Cherie Hu is an award-winning freelance journalist focusing on the intersection of music, media and technology. She writes regular columns for Billboard, Forbes and Music Business Worldwide, with additional bylines in publications including Variety, Pitchfork, Rolling Stone and Goldthread. In September 2017, she received the Reeperbahn Festival’s inaugural award for Music Business Journalist of the Year. She is a frequent guest commentator for the likes of CNBC and CGTN America and has spoken at over 20 media and entertainment conferences to date. Cherie studied statistics and music at Harvard University, where she spearheaded a music business research project with Harvard Business School’s Digital Initiative in 2015.
Beena Raghavendran is a journalist who’s been diving deep into engagement reporting at ProPublica in New York City—building on the momentum for engagement she had as a beat reporter at The Star Tribune in Minneapolis. She’s on an engagement reporting fellowship for the Local Reporting Network, ProPublica’s initiative to support local investigative journalism in newsrooms nationally. Her work there includes crowdsourcing, social strategy and story distribution. Beena became part of AAJA in 2015 via Voices and has stayed involved since, including serving as Minnesota chapter president. She was a 2017 CNN Diversity Fellow at ONA.
Howdy! I’m Claire Tran, an editorial fellow at The Atlantic in Washington, D.C. I spent my past two summers in Voices and the NBC fellowship, so AAJA has always been close to my heart. Less than a year ago, I was busy organizing color-coded spreadsheets to track a jillion different internship applications, so I understand the struggle most Yung AAJAers are going through right now. As committee head, I’m looking forward to sharing work opportunities and organizing skillbuilding events, especially in my favorite subjects like social media and data reporting, so we can all wake up and get this bread.
BROADCAST
Rachel Pak works at CNBC as a News Associate, a position she started after graduating college with degrees in English and computer science. Many of you will wonder how her education prepared her professionally. To be blunt—it did not. Rachel persistently sought experience in broadcast journalism through internships at CNBC and NBC Boston and her role as Executive Producer of her college’s TV station, which all taught her relevant skills behind and in front of the camera. Because of her circuitous path to broadcast news, Rachel is poised to provide creative resources and programming to AAJA’s yung ones.
Elections by-laws and social media restrictions for candidates:
- Please do not accept endorsements, social media posts, retweets or any engagement from official AAJA channels. This means, for example, no retweets from the AAJA New York chapter or a Facebook post on the AAJA San Francisco Bay Area chapter supporting your candidacy.
- You may post only ONCE in yung AAJA channels (Facebook, Slack) in support of your campaign. Endorsements from others supporting you will not be allowed on AAJA channels. We encourage you to reach out on an individual basis to constituents.
- We strongly discourage you from posting in official AAJA email listservs.
- We strongly discourage posting about the election in other AAJA social media channels.
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