Asian American Journalists Association Convention to Feature Lisa Ling and Town Hall on Native Hawaiian Issues

Asian American Journalists Association Convention to Feature Lisa Ling and Town Hall on Native Hawaiian Issues

Gathering to Also Include Media Workshop for Local Nonprofits

SAN FRANCISCO, April 5 /PRNewswire/ -- The Asian American Journalists Association today announced additional highlights of its 2006 national convention in Waikiki, including an awards luncheon keynote by Oprah Winfrey Show correspondent Lisa Ling and a public town hall on Native Hawaiian issues.

(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20050228/SFM118LOGO )

In addition to media training institutes, interactive plenary sessions and workshops featuring the industry's top leaders and experts, the convention will provide attendees educational tours of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center and the Filipino Community Center, and a media access workshop to help local nonprofits get their issues in the news.

More than 1,200 journalists and media professionals are expected to attend AAJA's 18th annual national convention, taking place June 21-24 at the Sheraton Waikiki. AAJA is celebrating its 25th anniversary as the nation's largest professional organization for Asian American and Pacific Islander journalists.

On behalf of its more than 2,000 members, AAJA promotes fair and accurate news coverage, develops managers in the media industry and encourages young people to consider journalism as a career.

The convention is hosted by the organization's Hawai'i chapter and co-chaired by Craig Gima, assistant city editor at the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, and Joann Shin, reporter for KHNL News 8. The Honolulu Advertiser's editorial and opinion editor Jeanne Mariani-Belding, who serves as AAJA's national vice-president for print, is the convention programming chair.

"The town hall on Native Hawaiian issues will be an excellent opportunity for the local community to dialogue with and meet journalists from all across the country," said Gima. "Along with the media access workshop for nonprofits and the educational tours, we hope our members will experience more than just Waikiki. We want them to come away with an understanding of Hawai'i's diversity."

Lisa Ling to Keynote Awards Luncheon

Lisa Ling, special correspondent for the Oprah Winfrey Show and the National Geographic Channel, will be the speaker at the convention's National Journalism Awards Luncheon on June 22.

Ling was the first woman host of National Geographic's flagship Explorer series, which premiered two decades ago. She investigated for the series the increasingly deadly drug war in Colombia, examined the complex issues surrounding China's one-child policy and explored the phenomenon of female suicide bombers in Chechnya and Israel's occupied territories.

As a special correspondent for the Oprah Winfrey Show, Ling covered the Lord's Resistance Army and the crisis of AIDS orphans in Uganda, bride burning in India and gang-rape in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Prior to traveling the globe for Explorer, Ling was known for revealing her "view" of the world to millions of Americans as co-host of Barbara Walters' hit daytime talk show, The View.

Ling has also hosted the Golden Globes pre-show for NBC for three years. She serves as a contributing editor for USA Weekend and has produced eight documentaries for PBS, several of which won awards. She also co-authored a National Geographic book entitled, "Mother, Daughter, Sister, Bride: rituals of womanhood."

Programming to Feature Top Industry Leaders, Topics and Educational Tours

A tour of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center will educate attendees about the agency charged with warning the U.S. and other countries around the Pacific Ocean about deadly tsunamis. The Center gathers information from seismographs throughout the world and can issue a watch or a warning within minutes of a major earthquake. Since the deadly Dec. 26, 2004, tsunami, the Center is now a model for Indian Ocean countries setting up their own warning centers.

A tour of the Filipino Community Center and Hawai'i's Plantation Village will examine how Filipino contract workers came to Hawai'i 100 years ago and joined Koreans, Japanese, Chinese, Puerto Ricans and Portuguese to work in the sugar and pineapple plantations, creating a multi-ethnic tapestry of immigration here. The tour ends with a panel on the Centennial of Filipino Immigration to Hawai'i.

A special session will feature a conversation with Time, Inc.'s Martha Nelson, editor of the People Group, which includes People and Teen People magazines and people.com. Nelson oversees one of the largest and most successful franchises in media history. Nelson will discuss how she keeps her titles relevant in the age of instant media and how the evolving landscape should change the way editors and journalists think about their publications.

The convention panels and sessions will cover a wide range of topics, including: anonymous sources and ethics amid shrinking press freedoms; covering the complexities of Islam; beyond blogs, podcasting and wikis; how China will shape stories and coverage; race and Asian immigration in the new century; covering major disasters in Asia; and how to survive covering a hurricane.

Some of the confirmed panelists include: Paul Steiger, managing editor of The Wall Street Journal; Neil Budde, general manager and executive producer of Yahoo! News; Leonard Downie, Jr., executive editor of The Washington Post; Edwin Chen, White House correspondent for the Los Angeles Times; Betty Wong, managing editor of Reuters North and South American; Pulitzer prize winning editor and reporter Byron Acohido; Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Cheryl Diaz Meyer; Mae Cheng, president of UNITY: Journalists of Color, Inc.; Bryan Monroe, president of the National Association of Black Journalists; Ivan Roman, executive director of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists; and Terry Harper, executive director of the Society of Professional Journalists.

Public Invited to Town Hall on Native Hawaiian Issues

On June 22, the convention will host a public town hall on Native Hawaiian issues, including a history and the future of the sovereignty movement. The town hall will take place from 7 to 9 p.m. in the Kaua'i and Maui Rooms of the Sheraton Waikiki Hotel. Speakers for the town hall include: Jon Osorio, chairman, University of Hawai'i at Manoa Center for Hawaiian Studies; Toni Lee, president, Association of Hawaiian Civic Club; and Clyde Namuo, administrator, Office of Hawaiian Affairs. There is no charge for this event.

On June 24, journalists and media professionals will deliver a media access workshop for local nonprofits. The workshop will include tips on how to properly pitch stories, write effective news releases and give television interviews.

Convention sponsors to date include The Honolulu Advertiser, Honolulu Star-Bulletin, The Annie E. Casey Foundation, The Arizona Republic/azcentral.com, Bloomberg, NPR, Belo Corporation, Budweiser, CBS, CNN, Freddie Mac, Harrah's Entertainment, Knight Ridder, NBC, Nielsen Media Research, PR Newswire, Toyota, A. Miller Group, Coca-Cola, Downtown Planet/AIO Group, ESPN, KHNL NBC 8, MGM Mirage, The New York Times, Time Inc., The Washington Post, Chevron Hawaii, East-West Center, KGMB 9, Korean American Foundation-Hawaii, University of Hawai'i School of Communications.

Additional corporate sponsorships are still available and advertising is an effective way to reach the more than 1,200 attendees.

May 5 is the pre-registration deadline for attendees. May 17 is the hotel reservation deadline. Convention details and online registration are available at www.aaja.org, or by calling the AAJA national office at 415-346-2051.

About AAJA

The Asian American Journalists Association is a non-profit professional and educational organization with more than 2,000 members today. Founded in 1981, AAJA has been at the forefront of change in the journalism industry. AAJA's mission is to encourage Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs) to enter the ranks of journalism, to work for fair and accurate coverage of AAPIs, and to increase the number of AAPI journalists and news managers in the industry. AAJA is an alliance partner in UNITY Journalists of Color, along with the Native American Journalists Association, National Association of Hispanic Journalists, and National Association of Black Journalists. For more information, visit www.aaja.org.

Photo: NewsCom: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20050228/SFM118LOGO
AP Archive: http://photoarchive.ap.org/
PRN Photo Desk, photodesk@prnewswire.com
Source: The Asian American Journalists Association

CONTACT: Janice Lee, +1-415-346-2051, or janicel@aaja.org, for The Asian
American Journalists Association

Web site: http://www.aaja.org/

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