Voices Staff
Just as newsrooms across the country are adjusting to operate with smaller staffing and new technology, the Asian American Journalists Association has redesigned its convention project to simulate the convergence newsroom of today. This program will provide mobile journalism and other news training opportunities to college students and professionals at the 2010 AAJA National Convention.
(Twitter handles in parentheses)
STUDENTS
Angela Chen (@angelawchen) is a multimedia journalist and 2010 graduate of Columbia University’s School of Journalism. She has a Master of Science degree in broadcast journalism. She currently lives in New York City. Originally from Southern California, Angela recently worked as a news writer and associate producer of the four-hour news program Good Morning San Diego at KUSI News. While she was at KUSI, she helped cover the San Diego wildfires, the case of missing teenager Amber DuBois and the beach booze ban. Angela was also an AAJA/NBC News fellow at Dateline and Channel One News. She has written for the San Diego Union-Tribune and worked for The Charlie Rose Show. Angela graduated from the University of California, San Diego, where she earned degrees in Literature/Writing and Psychology. She is fluent in Mandarin and a member of AAJA, SPJ and Pi Beta Phi. See her work at www.angelawchen.com.
Wesley Cho is a Korean-Canadian multimedia journalist who recently graduated with a Master’s degree in Multimedia Communications from the Academy of Art University. During the past year, he interned at ABC7 in San Francisco where he produced “Adoption” episode for a half hour Emmy Award-winning show, “Beyond the Headlines.” He is also a freelance reporter who likes to dig up interesting stories. Since his visit to the Korean Demilitarized Zone and Cuba, he’s been working on a feature story about the realities of Cuba. Wesley is a 2009 AAJA Bay Area Chapter Scholarship recipient. He hopes the News Convention Project will prepare him for the fast-changing journalism industry and grow as a knowledgeable multi-platform journalist.
Eva Dou (@evadou) grew up chasing lizards in Florida; at some point she began chasing stories instead. Her love for reporting drew her to the University of Missouri, where she’s a junior majoring in journalism and economics. In her spare time, she chats up resident goats in her backyard, researches the economics of the Internet and obsesses over public radio. She’s interning this summer with the Associated Press in New York. Her work has appeared in the Detroit Free Press and on GlobalPost.com. She is excited to improve her multimedia storytelling as part of the Convention News Project.
Noel Duan (@misscouturable) is a rising sophomore at Columbia University in New York City, where she is on the Dean’s List and studying sociocultural anthropology (with concentrations in visual arts and ethnographic film), art history, and creative writing. At Columbia, she is the Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of Hoot (hootmag.org), the student fashion magazine, which has been featured on TeenVogue.com, TheFrisky.com, and BlackBookMag.com. Through Hoot, she has styled celebrities such as Kelly Killoren Bensimon and attained a grant for the debut issue from CUarts. She is a Senior Staff Writer and Style Beat Chief for the Columbia Daily Spectator. She was also Arts Chair for Asian Pacific American Awareness Month 2010, in which she organized a panel discussion, consisting of the top Asian Americans in the fashion industry, such as Joe Zee, Creative Director of ELLE, and Phillip Lim, fashion designer, to raise relief money for the victims of the Yushu earthquake. Additionally, she is the Fashion Features Editor for Mochi (mochimag.org), the first and only magazine for Asian American teenage girls, and was the former Assistant Fashion Editor for Shut Up! (shutupmagazine.com), and former Associate Editor for Nolcha Metier (nolchametier.com), both entrepreneurial print and web magazines. She was a fashion intern for Seventeen back in high school, and spent her entire freshman year of college as a fashion intern for Town & Country. Her blog, MissCouturable.com, has been featured on TeenVogue.com and IHeartDaily.com, and receives over 5,000 unique visitors from around the world each day. Noel grew up in San Jose, California, where she attended The Harker School and was a reporter for the award-winning yearbook.
Dominique Fong (@dominiquefong) graduated in May from the University of Southern California with honors degrees in print journalism and political science and a minor in entrepreneurship. During her years at USC, she produced a weekly 30-minute talk show on TrojanVision, worked as an assistant news editor for the Daily Trojan, and secured grants from the American Center for Progress to re-launch Bamboo Offshoot, a cultural print and online magazine that educates the community about Asian American issues. She has interned for Silicon Valley Community Newspapers, Los Angeles Business Journal, Angeleno magazine, and Time Warner Cable. Dedicated to understanding the convergence of news, media and communication leadership, she hopes to develop better multimedia skills at the AAJA convention in Los Angeles, as well as help devise innovative strategies for mobile news platforms. Currently, she is collaborating with business and engineering students in a two-week USC fellowship to provide consultations for the Los Angeles Times about different mobile media models. Her career goals include traveling to Paris to be a foreign correspondent and becoming fluent in French, Spanish and Cantonese.
Lynne Guey (@heyguey) is a senior at the University of Florida pursuing a bachelor’s degree in Telecommuncation-News and minoring in Business and Chinese. Born and raised in Florida,she is a Floridian at heart but aspires to travel the world as a foreign correspondent in the future. Lynne reports for University of Florida’s television and radio stations and will join ABC News On Campus as a student reporter this fall. Aside from her news involvement, Lynne is an active blogger and spends much of her free time filing video blogs for her website, CampusTweet.TV. She hopes her participation in this year’s convention will strengthen her use of emerging technology, while also improving fundamental communication skills (regardless of the medium). She is passionate about Asian American issues and is looking forward to sharing this enthusiasm with others at the convention.
Elizabeth Gyori is a 19-year-old sophomore at New York University. She is double majoring in journalism and environmental studies, with a specific track in environmental science. Although Elizabeth was born in Connecticut, she moved around quite a bit until finally settling down in Warren, N.J.. She has had a deep interest in journalism and the power of the raw truth since high school. Elizabeth applied to the Convention News Project because she wants to learn how the media works from those who produce it. She hopes to finish this program with sharpened reporting and writing skills while also having branched out into video and multimedia. Elizabeth currently works for the Washington Square News, NYU’s student newspaper. She is also very active on and off campus in numerous clubs and organizations. In her spare time, Elizabeth likes to read, write, listen to all types of music, fence, keep up with politics and just have a fun time.
Jackelyn Ho believes that opportunities like this only come knocking once, and when they do, you take it and run with it, as she is doing with the Convention News Project. She attends San Francisco State University with a major in Television-Radio, a minor in Journalism, and an anticipated graduation date set for 2013. Journalistically, her aspirations are to be a news reporter, host, and producer. Her current agenda includes being an editorial writer for Mochi Magazine, a blogger for Collegecandy.com, a promotional intern for the California Music Channel, and an intern for CNBC Business News. She also had the privilege of attending AAJA’s J Camp in 2008. Oh, and she is a certified Turbo Kickboxing Instructor – you have to fit in those workouts somehow, right?
Pimpan Jongchirawongsa (@pimpanjong) is an aspiring journalist and fourth-year Media Studies and Political Science double major at UC Berkeley. She was originally born in Bangkok, Thailand, and her family eventually immigrated to Vallejo, Calif. Her membership in CalTV, UC Berkeley’s online TV station, sparked her interest in news reporting. Pimpan was recently selected for the AAJA Voices convergence convention project, a pioneering project that she knows will help her gain unique real-world journalism experience in addition to networking and learning opportunities from AAJA industry-leading professionals. She is looking forward to learn more about online media, a field that she believes has become increasingly important for journalists today.
Derek Lieu (@deylaliu) knew even before college he wanted to write non-fiction. He deeply admired Roger Ebert, read Hunter S. Thompson for years without knowing what mescaline was, and thought the writers at edmunds.com had the coolest job by far. So when he found out applications for the college newspaper at UCLA were due the next day (and possessing no decent writing samples to speak of), he applied to the photo section instead. Now, a year after graduating, he has no regrets. Photojournalism has incredible potential to raise awareness, illuminate injustice and affect public policy. At this Convention News Project, he hopes to enhance his ability to tell compelling stories through stills, video and audio. He looks forward to working in a nimble reporting team, able to adapt without the high overhead costs of traditional print-based publications. He’ll be shocked if he doesn’t meet some amazing people along the way.
Yeong Lim (@yeong8466) is a Korean born in Japan, but he has lived much of his life in the United States. He speaks Korean, Japanese, and English fluently. Currently, he is a student at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He applied for this project simply because he wanted to broaden his horizons and continue working on his American Journalism skills. He has a desire to work in the media internationally in the future.
Candice Nguyen (@candingnguyen) is, by day, your “friendly” Macy’s Sales Associate – definitely not her dream job, but it pays the bills so she can shadow a reporter full-time. Last December, she graduated with honors from NYU with a B.S. in Media, Culture and Communication. In college, Candice lived in China, Africa and the United Kingdom writing a weekly travel column for a Bay Area newspaper. She also stayed at a refugee camp in Ghana to shoot and edit “Lost Boys of Liberia,” a documentary about ex-child soldiers coming to term with their pasts. When Candice got the email about this project, she knew it was a perfect opportunity to put her experience to the test. She looks forward to improving her television and web writing, and she hopes for opportunities to do spot reporting. At the convention, Candice plans to show her reel to news directors for feedback and/or on-air job offers. Candice is excited to begin her reporting career, and did she mention she really doesn’t want to be in retail anymore?
Peter Sessum (@petersessum) has spent almost his entire adult life in service to my country in one way or another. His intent going back to school was to get a degree that would let him go back to Afghanistan and do some good. He fell into journalism and thought he could do more good by telling the stories that need to be told. Now a junior at the University of Washington, he feels his focus should be one networking and getting ready for his next step. That is why learning multimedia and attending conventions are so important. Despite the current state of journalism, stories still need to be told, and he is excited about the possibility of going overseas to bring them home.
Nicki Sun (@nickisun) is a multimedia activist striving to create a larger path for Asian Americans in entertainment while strengthening awareness of issues in the Asian American community, such as the recruitment of more ethnic bone marrow donors. At 22, she has traveled throughout the Bay Area as a freelance host and editor, producing videos for SFStationTV, Kollaboration, the Asian American Donor Program, and the CW Bay Area Television Station, while producing her own web show, “Now You Know.” Prior to graduating from UC Davis in Winter 2010 with a BA in Communication and minors in Contemporary Leadership and Writing, Nicki played a key role at the student television station, AggieTV, as their first Media Relations Coordinator and Executive Reporter. Here, she became one of the youngest iReporters aired on CNN National Headline News for her coverage on the student protest sit-in. She recently returned from a culinary tour in China with Chef Martin Yan and is excited to share her experiences on her website, www.nickisun.com. She anticipates participating in this project will help inspire her to further seek a career in broadcast journalism and generate ideas in how she can more effectively advocate for APA causes and issues in media.
Van Tieu (@vttieu) graduated from Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism in May and was a history major at UC Santa Barbara for undergrad. Since May, Van has been working as a freelance associate producer in CNN’s New York bureau. Van has also worked as an on-air reporter, writer, editor and producer for the Emmy award-winning Inside Santa Barbara, a program on City TV 18. She has also been an intern at Santa Barbara’s KEYT News, CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360, and NY 1 News, and CNNMoney.com. Van has been a member of the Asian-American Journalists Association since 2004. Van applied to the convention news project to work with the fabulous journalists who oversee the program and is excited to learn from the teachers and peers!
Vivian Wong is a sophomore at Stanford University, studying International Relations and Modern Languages. Born in Hong Kong and raised in the Bay Area, Vivian lost her Cantonese tongue in preschool, but is trying to reconcile her roots by taking Cantonese conversation classes. She is particularly interested in human rights. Inspired by her passion for photography, she hopes to use photojournalism to expose those tragedies and mobilize the world’s empathy. Thanks to AAJA, she will have the opportunity to gain experience and further her skills as a photojournalist!
Christa Yan (@christayan) is a senior at DePaul University in Chicago. She will be graduating this June with a bachelor’s degree in journalism. Television broadcast and editorial writing are her main strengths, but I’m convinced that being a part of AAJA’s project will help her add every other aspect of journalism to that list. Originally from San Francisco, she knows where to get the absolute best Peking roast duck and sashimi; clearly the result of having a Chinese father and Japanese mother with superior tastes.
EDITORS
Reena Advani (@ReenaAdvani) is an editor for National Public Radio’s most-listened-to program, Morning Edition. She sets up interviews, writes and edits various segments of the show – covering global news, books, movies and everything in between. Reena has worked for NPR for nearly fourteen years, most of that time as a producer on the foreign desk. She has filed her own stories for Morning Edition, All Things Considered and NPR’s hourly newscasts. Reena participated in the East-West Center’s first U-S-Korea journalists’ exchange and has also trained journalists in Nepal. She has served as a mentor to the next generation of Asian American journalists since 2006.
Robert Boos (@earthtobobby) is a faculty associate at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University and formerly an editor at azcentral.com/The Arizona Republic. He is a Cronkite school alumnus, and holds a master’s degree in geographic information systems from the ASU School of Geographical Science and Urban Planning. Robert got his start as a print journalist at the Chandler Arizonan Tribune and gravitated to the Web in the early days of the “dot-com boom.”
Adam Kealoha Causey (@akcausey) covers local government for The Times in Shreveport, La. He is a returning Voices staffer from the 2009 convention in Boston. He started his convention news project work in 2005 in Minneapolis as a Louisiana State University student. Prior to political reporting he covered Shreveport’s night crime beat. Recently Causey headed to the Gulf Coast to produce oil spill video and print stories. He is a fan of teamwork, and there’s always plenty to go around in AAJA.
Brian Choo graduated from Cal State Northridge in 1994, right after he worked at a Korean language station in Los Angeles for 5 years as a Videographer / Editor. After leaving that station, he went to Tucson, AZ where he worked for the ABC affiliate, KGUN, for 2 and a half years. In 2003, he moved to Las Vegas, NV and worked for the Fox affiliate, KVVU. He was there for about a year and a half. In 2004 he went to San Diego and worked for KSWB. He was there for about a year before that station laid everyone off in the news department. Luckily, he found work here in Los Angeles with KTLA Ch. 5 where he works as a Videographer / Editor.
Stephanie Chuang (@stephchuang) is the weekend morning anchor and nightside reporter for KSBW, the NBC affiliate in the Salinas-Monterey-Santa Cruz market. She received her Bachelor of Science degree in Journalism with a minor in Asian American Studies from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. It was during that time at NU that she worked with acclaimed documentarian Steve James who headed up the award-winning “Hoop Dreams;” Stephanie also helped to produce a documentary about the gentrification of Chicago’s historically infamous projects “Cabrini Green.” It was also during her time at Northwestern that Stephanie became a general assignment reporter at KSNT in Topeka, Kansas, as part of a school program where she wrote, shot, edited and delivered live reports on a daily basis. After graduation, Stephanie worked at KPIX-TV in San Francisco freelance writing for the morning shows. She has also held internships at KRON, WMAQ-TV and WGN-TV in Chicago. She’s excited to help students who are in the position she experienced when she was a student at the Voices project in Honolulu 2006.
Raymund Flandez (@raymundf23) is a multimedia staff writer for The Chronicle of Philanthropy, covering nonprofit fundraising. Previously, he covered small businesses for the Wall Street Journal. He has written for Barron’s, The Washington Post, The Tennessean and the New Jersey Law Journal. He graduated from the University of Maryland and studied in Seville, Spain. He has been involved as a professional mentor and editor with the student projects since Unity ’08 in Chicago. His first start in journalism was at the AAJA San Francisco 2001 convention online student project called AAJALink. He lives in Washington, D.C.
Edward de la Fuente (@ed_delafuente) is Homepage Editor for sacbee.com, the website of the Sacramento Bee, overseeing production and maintenance of site’s main page and subsections. He previously was the Philadelphia Phillies beat reporter for the Wilmington (Del.) News Journal and the University of Arizona football beat reporter for the Arizona Daily Star in Tucson, and has covered such events as the Major League Baseball and NFL playoffs, the MLB and NBA All-Star Games, the Rose and Fiesta Bowls and the NCAA basketball Final Four. He graduated from the University of Southern California with a degree in print journalism. He hopes to become more well-versed in new tools and techniques for journalists and to help others learn to use them as well.
Byron A. Gronseth is a Seattle-based artist and designer specializing in print design and illustration, stemming from a lifetime of sketching, drawing, pursuing amateur photography, creative thought and imaginative idea generation. The majority of his work involves developing identities and creating full life-cycle production of unique marketing and collateral materials. In his career, Byron has had the opportunity to art direct and produce integrated print and web promotional campaigns and full scale event signage for Toyota Motor Manufacturing and Black Hat Briefings & Training. Byron aims to inspire others with his art direction and creative vision, communicating a message in a completely original way, and encourages his audience to think, reflect, learn and act.
Maria Hechanova (@MariaHechanova) is a producer/reporter at KYMA-TV NBC News Channel 11 in Yuma, AZ. Don’t let her job title fool you though, because she wears many hats in the newsroom. From anchoring, to shooting her own footage, to taking a stab at forecasting the weather, Maria has almost tried it all. She was a student on last year’s Voices staff and is thrilled to be a mentor this year. She credits the AAJA for helping her land her first job and with nearly one year of professional experience under her belt, she hopes to give back by motivating students and letting them know they can do it too! Maria also applied for the program to learn more about online story format since her station is making the push to transfer broadcast scripts into web copy.
Dr. Mona Khanna is a triple board-certified medical doctor, acclaimed humanitarian worker and an Emmy award-winning medical journalist who is the Medical Contributor to Fox Chicago News. Her college degree is from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University and she is the only medical doctor inducted into the Medill Hall of Achievement, as well as the only career journalist inducted into the Delta Omega Public Health Honor Society and the Institute of Medicine at Chicago. She also graduated from the University of Illinois College of Medicine and was awarded its Humanitarian Award in 2008 because of her 12-year volunteerism with national and international medical relief agencies. For her volunteerism and leadership in empowering and educating people through television, radio, magazine, newspaper and online heath reports, Dr. Mona has received almost 50 awards in the past 7 years, including the Illinois Press Women’s Association Award, Communicator’s Award, Telly Award and Institute of Medicine at Chicago Global Humanitarian Award in the past 3 months. She is a graduate of AAJA’s ELP, two-time winner of AAJA’s Online Reporting Award, winner of the Award of Valor from the National Association of Minority Media Executives and winner of the Leadership Award from the American Medical Association Foundation. She was given the Texas Association of Broadcasters Award for Outstanding Valor and Service in Pursuit of Broadcast News Coverage while in Asia covering the Indian Ocean tsunami aftermath.
Tom Krymkowski is a Cinematographer based in San Francisco. He has been the Director of Photography for several award-winning short films, as well as the feature-length films This Town and Devious, Inc. He also shoots video for corporate clients that include Adobe and Intel. Before moving into visual media he spent 15 years as an Audio Engineer for various public broadcasting entities, including the BBC World Service, KQED San Francisco, and WGBH Boston. He was also the Technical Advisor for NPR’s Next Generation Radio training projects. He has been part of the AAJA student projects every year since 1999. Currently he is working as Director of Photography for his third feature-length project, I Work For Nemesis, and the short films Charity, The Templetons 2, as well as The Magic Man which he shot in 3D.
Ruth Liao (@ruthlessliao) is a reporter for the Statesman Journal newspaper in Salem, Ore. She covers nonprofits, social services and health care. Liao is also chapter secretary for the Portland AAJA chapter. She is an alum of the 2005 Voices project during the AAJA convention in Minneapolis. That experience motivated her to volunteer as a news project staff member. Liao hopes to give back to the organization that inspired her to become a journalist and allowed her to grow in professional development.
Marian Liu (@marianliu) covers arts and entertainment for The Seattle Times, in print, audio and video. She edited convention newspapers for the past six years. Her favorite part of the process is helping students find their voice. Last year, she kicked off a groundbreaking multi-platform version of VOICES, merging print with audio and video. The year before, she headed the Unity convention newspaper in three languages. Besides reporting, she is finishing up her Executive MBA, with an emphasis on branding, at the University of Washington. In the past, she wrote for hip-hop magazine The Source, the San Jose Mercury News, the Los Angeles Times, Oakland Tribune and Detroit Free Press. She also serves on the journalism advisory board at the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Washington. Most of all, Liu is passionate about communicating the needs of the communities she represents: “young, Chinese, Asian, and female.”
Mariecar Mendoza (@Mar_In_Her_Car) is the Palm Springs reporter at The Desert Sun in Palm Springs, Calif., where she has covered news of the Coachella Valley for nearly four years. Hailing from the Bay Area, Mariecar began writing for community newspapers in high school. Her passion for journalism continued to grow and in college, while she worked mainly in print for both magazines and newspapers, she also dabbled in radio and television. Those early experiences with multimedia have proved beneficial as she now shoots and edits video for The Desert Sun’s website, mydesert.com, to supplement many of her print stories. Mariecar’s first involvement with AAJA was in 2006 when she was chosen to participate as a student for Voices – the Hawaii edition. She has since been an active AAJA member, hoping to inspire young journalists the same way her AAJA mentors had during her first convention.
Sonia Narang is a multimedia journalist who produced video stories from Japan and India for the New York Times, GlobalPost, PBS NewsHour, Time.com, and the Wall Street Journal this year. She previously worked for NBC News, where she produced stories for Nightly News and msnbc.com. She was also an associate interactive producer at the PBS international documentary program Frontline/World, where she reported, filmed, and edited an award-winning multimedia series in rural India. She’s a graduate of the documentary filmmaking program at UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.
Shraddha Swaroop (@shraddha714) is a design editor at the Los Angeles Times. During her time at the paper, she has created and launched brand-new newspaper products for the company, while working in the features, business and news departments designing, editing and encouraging the conversation for visual thinking in the newsroom. Before her time in Los Angeles, Shraddha worked at The Virginian-Pilot as a designer for the news, features, sports and business departments. Before that she did a little bit of everything at the San Jose Mercury News. Her work has been recognized by the Society for News Design, Virginia Press Association, Society of American Travel Writers, Los Angeles Press Club, Society of Professional Journalists, Bay Area Journalism Awards and the March of Dimes.
Bernadette Tuazon (@btuazon) is the multimedia photo editor for The Associated Press based in New York. Part of her job for the AP is producing and driving visually compelling projects oriented with photos, videos, and sound and collaborating with AP’s editorial team around the world. This is her fourth year taking part in AAJA Voices.
William Wan (@thewanreport) covers religion for The Washington Post. He has worked as a reporter for the paper since 2005. He contributed to its Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of the Virginia Tech massacre and was a lead reporter on the 2010 Pulitzer finalist team covering the Fort Hood shootings. He believes journalism can be saved, and that young journalists will be the ones to do it. He volunteered for this year’s all-new Mojo student project in pursuit of those beliefs.