Doris Truong, a multiplatform editor at the Washington Post and 14-year member
Doris Truong, a multiplatform editor at the Washington Post and 14-year member of the Asian American Journalists Association, was elected president of the association on Saturday.
She defeated Neal Justin, a television and media critic for the Star Tribune of Minneapolis and a co-founder of AAJA’s high school J Camp who had the endorsement of several former AAJA presidents. The vote was 194 to 159.
In the other contested race, for treasurer, Rene Astudillo, a longtime past executive director of AAJA, defeated Candace Heckman, the incumbent, an editor at Nyhus Communications in Seattle, 180 to 160, according to Executive Director Kathy Chow.
George Kiriyama, a reporter for NBC Bay Area, ran unopposed for re-election as vice president/broadcast, winning 350 votes.
Truong, 34, grew up in western Colorado where, she said, “Asian Americans were so few that I knew most of the other Asian families in my hometown.” She was re-elected last year to a second term as AAJA’s national secretary. In a campaign message, Truong said:
“My network in Washington includes leaders in many journalism groups that will want to work together to benefit all our groups going forward. I would love to meet our members through Skype and social media. It’s important to associate AAJA with a name and a face because that’s what builds long-term commitment to our shared mission,” she said.
The results were announced at the gala awards dinner at the AAJA convention, which attracted some 809 participants in Los Angeles, according to AAJA Voices. The featured banquet speakers were Laura Ling and her former co-worker, Euna Lee, who were captured last year while they were on assignment in North Korea. They were detained after they crossed the Chinese/North Korean border.
They gave moving, powerful speeches, according to attendees who twittered. “Laura Ling gave the most powerful speech at #AAJA,” wrote one. “Laura Ling’s keynote at #AAJA was moving and showed her true journalistic calling: Her speech was all about the plight of other people,” wrote another. A third said, “Such incredible heroes for all journalists.”
Earlier Saturday, AAJA hosted a town hall-style meeting reflecting on the Los Angeles riots of 1992, which pitted blacks against Korean Americans.
Scheduled panelists were Larry Aubry, a Los Angeles Sentinel columnist; Bill Boyarsky, former city editor of the Los Angeles Times and a University of Southern California journalism professor; Sandra Hernandez of the L.A. Daily Journal; Hyungwon Kang, a Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist who was working at the L.A. Times during the riots; K.W. Lee, a veteran investigative reporter and former editor of the Korea Times English Edition; and Angela Oh, director of the Western Justice Center.
Follow Doris on twitter www.twitter.com/doristruong
Source www.mije.org