AAJA Los Angeles » News

AAJA-LA Board Position Descriptions

sakata.john — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 09:10:55 +0000

Elections are coming up! Interested in a position and volunteering your time? See job descriptions below.

Time line:
Oct. 3-14 – submit applications. (two weeks)
Oct. 15-28 – voting process. (two weeks)
Oct. 29 – election results announced.

Each board position is for 2 years, chairs are 1 year.

The application is an essay. Please write an essay to our members on what you can bring to AAJA next year and what makes you a stellar candidate. Email essay to: aajalalosangeles@gmail.com

Board Member Descriptions

President
Oversees governing board, advisory board, and organization
Lead board meetings and represents the board and organization as a whole
Serves as the main spokesperson to the media and community on behalf of AAJANY; represents AAJANY in the community.
Recommends creation of committees; Designates responsibilities to board committees
Prepares pre-meeting materials
Recruits new board members and ensures proper orientation of new board members
In general, ensures board operations run smoothly
Participate in quarterly conference calls with other AAJA presidents
Liaise with other media and community organization presidents
Oversees board voting process, and if necessary breaks voting ties
Votes on AAJA-LA issues

Vice President, Broadcast

Assists the President with his /her responsibilities
Responsible for the broadcast area of AAJA-LA, which includes sub-commitee/s and events.
Creates strategic plan of broadcast events throughout the year
Votes on AAJA-LA issues

Vice President, Online

Assists the President with his /her responsibilities
Responsible for the online area of AAJA-LA, which includes sub-commitee/s and events.
Creates strategic plan of broadcast events throughout the year
Votes on AAJA-LA issues

Vice President, Print

Assists the President with his /her responsibilities
Responsible for the Print area of AAJA-LA, which includes sub-committee/s and events.
Creates strategic plan of print events throughout the year
Votes on AAJA-LA issues

Treasurer

In general, manages board financial activities and is responsible for bookkeeping
Ensures financial records are up to date and provide financial report to the board each meeting.
Forecast spending and earnings for the year
Ensure financial concerns are brought to the attention of the board
Ensure the proper use of funds and in general the sound management of finance
Create midyear and end of the year reports to the national chapter
Create monthly report/balance sheet for each meeting.
If treasurer cannot attend meeting, s/he must have another board member present the financial report.
Submits reports to the national office twice a year on January 31 and June 15.
Votes on AAJA-LA issues

Secretary

Records meeting minutes and distributes minutes within 72 hours following meeting.
Is responsible for archiving past minutes, etc. and uploads all document to Google Docs.
Updates members of monthly meetings and keeps tracks of meeting attendance
If secretary cannot attend meeting, s/he must have another board member record minutes.
Votes on AAJA-LA issues

National Advisory Board-

Participates in quarterly conference calls with other advisory board members
Corresponds with national staff members when necessary
Emails weekly reports from national office to all board members
Attends two meetings each year (one at national office in Spring and one at National Convention in the summer)
Votes on national issues as a representative of NYC members
If she/he cannot attend a meeting, she/he will have another board member report in his/her place
Present national issues at monthly board meetings
Votes on AAJA-LA issues

AAJA-LA Board 2012

sakata.john — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 08:55:23 +0000

Jocelyn “Joz” Wang, President/ National Advisory Board Representative, is an avid writer who embraced blogging at its onset. She contributes her web expertise in Information Architecture, User Experience (UX), and Social Media to UsabilityCounts.com. Known online– and offline– for her personal blog jozjozjoz.com, she is a Co-Editor of the popular Asian American collaborative blog 8Asians.com. She is also a long-time contributor blogging.la, flagship site of the Metblogs network, a massive local journalism and media project that began in 2003. Professionally, Joz is a Strategy Consultant at speakTECH, an interactive design and technology firm which works on technologies in delivering business solutions to industries such as Media & Entertainment, High-Tech/Manufacturing, Consumer Packaged Goods, Healthcare, State & Local Government and Educational Institutions. Her clients include Disney/ABC Television Networks, NBC-Universal, DTS Digital Entertainment, Numonyx, PepsiCo, The Estée Lauder Companies, City of Hope, and the Municipality of Anchorage. A Southern California native, Joz’s prior professional experience includes Marketing Project Manager at The Nielsen Company, Marketing Manager at Nelson Davis Television Productions (KTLA-TV), and Manager of National Accounts at CBS/Westwood One Radio Networks. Joz received her MBA from Pepperdine University and her BA from UCLA.

DAVID ONO, Vice President – Broadcast David Ono mans the anchor desk twice a day on ABC7. Ono first joined the “Eyewitness News” team in 1996. Through the years, you’ve also seen David host the popular magazine show “Eye on LA.” He also co-anchored “Eyewitness News This Morning.” Ono has won eight Emmy awards and 19 nominations. His career has included stops in Sacramento at KOVR-TV, El Paso at KDBC-TV, Midland/Odessa at KOSA-TV and Dallas at KXAS-TV. Ono grew up in Texas and is a graduate of the University of North Texas. He has served the Los Angeles chapter as a longtime Vice President and board member, and as the Emcee of the annual “Trivia Bowl.”

RICHARD CHANG, Vice-president Print Richard Chang is an arts and entertainment writer for The Orange County Register, where he has worked since February 2000. He specializes in visual art and museums, but has also written about television, movies, film festivals, the performing arts and Southern California media. He also does art news and reviews for the national magazine ARTnews. Richard has worked at a few different newspapers, including The Santa Fe New Mexican, The Bakersfield Californian and The Albuquerque Journal. He has freelanced for a number of other publications, including the San Francisco Bay Guardian, A. Magazine, Tribal College Journal and Asian Week. Richard teaches an arts and entertainment journalism and writing workshop at UCLA. The course is designed for students who wish to write about A&E for The Daily Bruin. He has taught courses in journalism and writing at California State University, Fullerton and Los Angeles Valley College. His experience in radio includes stints at KQED in San Francisco, KALX in Berkeley, KUCI in Irvine and radioinvasion.com. Richard graduated from Brown University with honors in English and American Literature and received a master’s degree in journalism from UC Berkeley. Richard hopes to expand AAJA-LA’s reach to journalism professionals and students in Orange County.

SHAWN WONG, Treasurer Shawn Nicole Wong is an urban planning consultant based in Los Angeles. She is a graduate of the College of Environmental Design at UC Berkeley. She has previously written for Venice Magazine and interned for ABC News 20/20 and Primetime.

JOHN SAKATA, Secretary, is a reporter at the Lompoc Record in Santa Barbara County. In the past he has reported on the Vietnamese community, education in the Glendora area, and children’s health issues. His work has been published predominately on Orange County publications, such as Parenting OC, Voice of OC, the Laguna Beach Independent, the Nguoi Viet, and several other news media publications. Sakata graduated from California State Fullerton with a bachelor’s degree in journalism and political science. For the Los Angeles Chapter, Sakata has served as website moderator, membership coordinator, and, most recently, as the volunteer coordinator at the AAJA National Convention.

Board of Directors

KIM BUI is the social media and community editor for Southern California Public Radio (89.3 KPCC). She has worked for online and traditional news operations as an editor, reporter and web producer including The Loop 21, San Luis Obispo Tribune and the Kansas City Star. She is also a co-creator of the weekly Twitter web journalism chat, #wjchat.

FRANK BUCKLEY Frank Buckley is co-anchor of the KTLA Morning Show. Previously, he was a National Correspondent with CNN based in Los Angeles. He has also worked as a reporter at KCAL-TV, KESQ-TV in Palm Springs and as a weekend anchor at WXII-TV in Winston-Salem, NC. Buckley is the recipient of numerous awards including the Emmy and the Golden Mike. Buckley is a graduate of USC. His internships while at USC included CBS Network News, news writing at KNX and reporting for the Detroit News and the Los Angeles Times. Buckley, whose mother is Japanese, was a recipient of an AAJA scholarship.

LIBERTY ZABALA (@LibertyZabala) is a reporter at Channel 3 News, a cable access station in Garden Grove, CA. She is a senior at California State University, Northridge majoring in journalism with a collateral in political science. In high school, she began writing for her campus paper quickly becoming managing editor. She has held several broadcast internships including Fox News Channel, Fox Sports Net, KABC and NBC Nightly News. She has written for multiple publications including the L.A. Youth, Saturday Night Magazine and University Link Magazine, where she was featured as the guest editor within her first month at ULM. She has conducted celebrity interviews from actress Alexa Vega to musician Kevin Rudolf to world champion boxer Manny Pacquiao. She serves as the president of the CSUN chapter of Radio Television Digital News Association. She has anchored for KCSN’s 30-minute radio newscast called the “Evening Update”. Liberty recently covered the AAJA Detroit 2011 national convention as a Voices reporter/anchor. Her goal is to become an international correspondent.

KY TRANG HO – Business Investors Daily — Trang Ho covers exchange traded and mutual funds for Investor’s Business Daily, where she’s worked since 2005. Before the newspaper, she worked at a public radio station in Southern California as a reporter and producer. She has also worked as a newscast producer in Palm Springs. She has a BA in Sociology from UC Berkeley and an MA in Communications and Journalism from The Ohio State University, where she was a fellow in the Kiplinger Public Affairs Journalism Program.

PHIL IGE is a videographer at KTLA Channel 5 in Los Angeles. His favorite mantra about his job: “Without us, it’s radio.” He takes a lot of pride in being a TV Photojournalist. He got his first experience covering news when he was 19 years old: While covering a story for his college TV news station, he came across a breaking news story involving bank robbers, cops with guns drawn, and the suspect eventually giving up. He got everything on tape, and after that experience, he hasn’t looked back. Phil has worked at ABC (KERO) in Bakersfield, at the ABC affiliate in Santa Barbara, Norfolk, VA, at the NBC and WB affiliates in San Diego, and now he’s back home in L.A at KTLA.

SUZANNE JOE KAI was among the first Asian American female news broadcasters to “break the glass ceiling” in San Francisco. She was a TV news reporter, documentary producer, and public affairs show host for KRON-TV (when it was NBC-SF), and also worked as a journalist on-camera for KTVU-TV Oakland, and KGO-TV (ABC-SF). She is currently producing two documentaries. Suzanne is the founder of StudioLA.TV, a production company which produces news & entertainment programming for wireless, online and television outlets. Suzanne is a member & 2007- 2010 judge with the Emmys Interactive Peer Group in Hollywood. She is the publisher and co-founder of AsianConnections. com. Suzanne earned a Masters degree in Communication from Stanford University.

MATT STEVENS is a print journalist who will begin the Metpro training program at the Los Angeles Times in the fall of 2011. Matt interned for The Times and the Orange County Register as a sports reporter after eight years in scholastic journalism. While in Sports, Matt has covered everything from professional soccer, to college basketball, to high school baseball. In the summer of 2010, with the aid of the Bridget O’Brien Scholarship, he and a partner reported on the exploitive machinery behind international basketball recruiting during a 31-day trip to Yaoundé, Cameroon. The team’s work won several awards, including the Society of Professional Journalists national Mark of Excellence for investigative reporting.

GRACE LIM is an Associate Producer at CBS2/KCAL9 NewsCentral. She has been involved in AAJA since college. In 2003, she joined the LA Chapter, where she served as Secretary. She also served as a student coordinator, putting together informational panels and discussions for students interested in journalism. She is also currently the social chair, organizing networking events for journalists in the LA area.

AAJA-LA Board 2011

sakata.john — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 08:41:39 +0000

KY TRANG HO, President – Business Investors Daily — Trang Ho covers exchange traded and mutual funds for Investor’s Business Daily, where she’s worked since 2005. Before the newspaper, she worked at a public radio station in Southern California as a reporter and producer. She has also worked as a newscast producer in Palm Springs. She has a BA in Sociology from UC Berkeley and an MA in Communications and Journalism from The Ohio State University, where she was a fellow in the Kiplinger Public Affairs Journalism Program.

Jocelyn “Joz” Wang, National Advisory Board Representative, is an avid writer who embraced blogging at its onset. She contributes her web expertise in Information Architecture, User Experience (UX), and Social Media to UsabilityCounts.com. Known online– and offline– for her personal blog jozjozjoz.com, she is a Co-Editor of the popular Asian American collaborative blog 8Asians.com. She is also a long-time contributor blogging.la, flagship site of the Metblogs network, a massive local journalism and media project that began in 2003. Professionally, Joz is a Strategy Consultant at speakTECH, an interactive design and technology firm which works on technologies in delivering business solutions to industries such as Media & Entertainment, High-Tech/Manufacturing, Consumer Packaged Goods, Healthcare, State & Local Government and Educational Institutions. Her clients include Disney/ABC Television Networks, NBC-Universal, DTS Digital Entertainment, Numonyx, PepsiCo, The Estée Lauder Companies, City of Hope, and the Municipality of Anchorage. A Southern California native, Joz’s prior professional experience includes Marketing Project Manager at The Nielsen Company, Marketing Manager at Nelson Davis Television Productions (KTLA-TV), and Manager of National Accounts at CBS/Westwood One Radio Networks. Joz received her MBA from Pepperdine University and her BA from UCLA.

HENRY FUHRMANN, National Advisory Board Representative

Board of Directors

MACHIKO YASUDA After a summer internship at The Washington Post, Machiko Yasuda is back in southern California with The Ventura County Star. She will be a digital content producer for one year as a part of the Scripps Multimedia Fellowship. In 2010, she graduated from UCLA with a degree in comparative literature and was one of 30 students chosen to be a Poynter College Journalism fellow. Also a member of the Online News Association, she’s interested in the intersection of technology and local journalism. Reach her at @machikoyasuda.

WILL TACHIIRI is a Japanese Social Media producer/blogger, a bi-lingual interviewer, and a published author resides in Torrance, CA. Being a curious and tech-savvy early-adopter, he’s been posting up-to-date coverage on computer and mobile technology arena, and local events not only in greater Los Angeles, but also Silicon Valley and Las Vegas to Japanese community at his “Ichikara” (Willpower) blog since 2009. Tachiiri studied Geography/Environmental Studies at UCLA, and had worked for manufacturing and translation industry for over 10 years. His unique business background as an entrepreneur, consultant, and CEO for a subsidiary of a publicly traded company, contributes to widening his perspective and sharpening analysis when he writes or interviews. Tachiiri is a strong believer of the unleashed power of emerging Social Media and potential of the collaboration between Social and Mass media, as he discussed in his book “Social Media Revolution”, a best seller for the early year 2011 in Japan. With his constant blogging and books he has published, Tachiiri is getting widely recognized as one of the most influential Japanese Social Media experts. His most recent book came out in June 2011 exclusively scrutinizes how Social Media was utilized and connected people nationwide during the aftermath of Tsunami and Earthquake in Japan. The book also illustrates how Social and Mass Media collaborated together to provide people with critical information and knowledge in a timely manner. Tachiiri is a frequent traveler to Japan and Las Vegas, and also gives speeches and lectures as well contributing articles to both English and Japanese media.

AAJA-LA BOARD 2012

sakata.john — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 08:36:47 +0000

Board of Directors

Reporting on an International Crisis: Japan earthquake, tsunami remembered

sakata.john — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 12:01:58 +0000

BY ALEXA PARMISANO, UCLA sophomore/ FOX11 Fall 2011 intern

Everywhere Frank Buckley looked he saw acres and acres of debris and flattened land.

The KTLA anchor was sitting in a truck on his way to Sendai, ripped to rubble by earthquake and tsunami, days after a 9.0 earthquake had hit the region. Strewn across the ground outside his vehicle were children toys and clothes. Buckley, and a KTLA team that included his producer and photographer, was on his way to report on an international crisis.

“As a person, you see toys on the ground, realize they belong to children, and think to yourself – are they OK?” Buckley said in a phone interview.

He would see three dead bodies in the span of three hours, a few of the more than 22,000 that would be reported dead.

“It wasn’t just video on a feed (but) a real community where real families that have been torn apart,” Buckley said.

Days earlier, minutes after the earthquake struck, Buckley was awoken from his bed on March 10 at 1 a.m. by a call from his executive producer. Buckley was told he’d be on air in three short hours to report on the Japan quake.

Buckley immediately began putting out calls to connect with contacts stationed in Japan. Buckley is no stranger to the region. Buckley’s mother is Japanese. He is a member of the Japanese American Leadership Delegation program, and he had the president of the delegation on the air for the telecast. The day after the earthquake he was on a plane to Tokyo.

Buckley’s past included trips to Japan as a boy and several more as he grew older, an experience that helped him in his reporting, his producer Toni Molle said.

“The surprising thing about Frank is that he told me he was Japanese, but I didn’t know (how extensively) he spoke the language,” Molle said. So when the team landed in customs without the necessary visas or papers, Buckley was able to facilitate the issue using his Japanese.

Going off to report on a crisis situation doesn’t offer a lot of time for preparation.

Buckley’s team didn’t have much equipment on certain spots – an iPHone 4 and portable satellite. His media team did not have proper credentials to get into Sendia, which meant the team had hit a roadblock. The team would get some assistance from another network – CNN asked KTLA to give one of their producers a ride to the region. The team travelled all night; by daybreak Buckley was reporting from the region.

Buckley turned to his past reporting experiences to cover the disaster.

Buckley had his first job as a sports play-by-play announcer at a local radio station. Buckley said he learned as a play-by-play announcer what it means to bring to life the images the audience sees on TV. There was no makeup or time for a “take two,” Buckley said.

“You have to try and relate to listeners or viewers and describe images in a way that makes sense – what it feels like and smells like at that moment,” he said.

But for someone who spent much of his career as a correspondent, he said he felt like he was in an arena he was comfortable with.

An order from CNN would pull Buckley and his team out of Japan three days after they had arrived. The presence of radiation was detected and there were serious concerns.

The plane they took was filled with many Japanese wives and children leaving their home country, but a sense of calm was evident, Buckley said. The decision to leave home behind everything spoke to the gravity of the situation developing on the island.

“We met this one Japanese man on the plane who knew almost no one in the US,” Molle said.