AAJA and the Future of APA News
August 19, 2005
Where have we heard this message before? The latest numbers on APA broadcast journalists are going to be repeated over and over again at this week’s Asian American Journalists Association convention in Minnesota. Unsurprisingly, the numbers are the lowest in a decade.
But we’re getting a little tired of the lamenting and the posturing about the need to change.
The reality is that AAJA is already a huge success. Its longevity of 25 years is an accomplishment in itself. It have garnered major financial support from virtually every media conglomerate in America. They are expected to complete a $2 million fundraising campaign by next year.
AAJA has become a part of the journalistic establishment and a voice for APAs working in corporate-run newsrooms across the country.
AAJA is doing all that it is meant to do. All that it can do. It is time that Asian Americans look elsewhere to increase and improve coverage of our community.
Because the new reality is that the cutting edge of media is not within the journalistic establishment.
Asian Americans are finding their voices in different places –– in community newspapers, ethnic television stations, niche Internet sites and even in-language outlets.
It’s telling that AAJA has reached its highest membership levels ever, even as representation in corporate newsrooms is dwindling. The former is a measure of AAJA’s success. The latter is a fact of American journalism –– where people of color are simply not able to make significant inroads in that institution.
Less than one percent of AAJA members work in the ethnic media. But there are thousands and thousands of APAs that do. These are the people making the biggest difference in coverage of Asian America. Too much of their work goes unheralded and under-rewarded. There is a need to support their efforts, whether through AAJA reaching out into this new arena, or a grassroots effort developing on its own.
The time has come when we may have to accept that American journalism is predominantly a white enterprise. The future of Asian American news coverage –– and APAs working and reporting on the news –– is going in a different direction.
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