This year's keynote speaker features John Yang, NBC News correspondent.

By Jackie Watanabe
Voices

NBC News correspondent John Yang says no other job appeals to him more than being able to tell other people’s stories. Yang, a first-generation Chinese American, has always been a journalist.

Before transitioning to television news, Yang was a reporter and editor for nearly 10 years at The Washington Post. He has also worked for The Boston Globe, Time Magazine, and The Wall Street Journal.

Q: How did you get into journalism?

A: Once I found out what a journalist did, it became sort of natural for me. I’ve always been someone who wanted to know what’s going on. I’ve always been very nosy. I’ve always wanted to know what’s really going on. What’s the story behind the story? How did all this happen? Who’s really pulling the strings and how is he making all this happen? I’ve always wanted to be the first one to tell people things, to walk into a room and say, “Guess what just happened?”

Q: How did you make the change from print to broadcast news?

A: Broadcast was something that always interested me, but I never knew quite how to make that jump. At The Washington Post, they were doing more and more into getting involved in television – sort of cross-branding – having reporters available for cross talks, and I did a fair amount of those for The Post.

The NBC affiliate in Washington, D.C., approached The Post in the late 90s about doing some joint ventures. One of the ideas was to turn the business section into a branded business report in the morning, ahead of the “Today” show. They were going to call it the Washington Post Business Report. They asked a number of us to audition and make tapes and they picked me. I discovered the joys of morning television and getting up at ungodly hours. I discovered I liked it and was good at it, had fun doing it, and got offers out of it, and that’s how it happened.

Q: You’ve covered a broad range of topics – everything from things here in the nation to world affairs. What has been the most challenging thing for you?

A: There are all sorts of different challenges – understanding complex stories in a short amount of time and becoming an instant expert on something.

That’s the one challenge about covering the White House. Stories and topics just pop up, and you don’t necessarily see them coming. Covering the Hill, you sort of know when topics are coming. When bills are moving through committees into the floor, you get up to speed on them as they are being drafted. At the White House, things pop up. Things happen around the world, and suddenly you have to become an expert on Myanmar or Burma when the typhoon hit last year.

I can talk about just about any topic for about two or three minutes, and then you’ve exhausted my knowledge. It’s sort of like being at a cocktail party. You keep running into people and having to come up with different topics to talk about.

Q: Do you think your background affects your reporting?

A: I think everyone’s background affects their reporting. No one comes to this as a blank slate. We’re all products of who we are, and we approach stories based on who we are and where we come from and what our backgrounds are. I’m going to approach a story differently than a colleague. It has to do with ethnicity, it has to do with being Asian, but it also has to do with growing up in the Midwest, growing up in a small town.

Q: How do you assess media coverage of the Asian community?

A: I think it could be better. I think that there is a tendency in a lot of reporting to lump the Asian communities together. It’s not just the Asian community. I see the same thing in reporting on Latinos and Hispanics.

I think it’s getting better because of having more Asian and Latino reporters who can bring sensitivity to the coverage.

Q: What do you think could be done to improve the coverage?

A: I think it’s all about just reporting. It’s getting out to the community and talking to the people and understanding. So much of this is just good basic journalism. It’s just going out and understanding the communities and understanding the differences and the subtleties of the communities.

Q: What do you think about media convergence and if it’s the future of journalism?

A: It’s not just the future, it’s the present. I think that it’s smart to have as many skills as you can have to be as versatile as you can be to be able to move within these roles.

I think that that is the way that journalists are going to be working in the future. All the walls are breaking down, and we are all doing all sorts of different things.

Q: Your advice for people trying to reinvent themselves?

A: Embrace it! Don’t be afraid of it. It’s fun! When I got offers to move to television, it made me stop and think about where I was and what I was doing. I was at a newspaper that I really loved. I loved The Washington Post. But I realized I could stay the rest of my career at The Post, so it was a good thing and a bad thing. At age 40, someone was offering to pay me to learn a new skill, and I thought, how can I pass that up? If it didn’t work out, at least I’d have a taste of a new skill or at least I’d have the basis of a new skill. I think you just have to keep growing and learning and discovering new things.

Things are changing. The business environment is changing. the technology is changing. You have to deal with what you’ve got now and play the hand that you’re dealt with.

Q: And finally, your thoughts about AAJA?

A: Well, just how much AAJA means to me. … It’s a great reminder to me that whenever I go there that I stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before me. That’s really why I’m so committed to the organization. I really feel that it has been incumbent on me to try and do what little I can do to give what boost I can to those who are coming up behind me.