With nearly one-third of membership worldwide comprised of students, AAJA makes continued efforts to provide a holistic, sustainable cycle of career development and mentoring through, fellowships and internships. Under the leadership of its Student Representatives, AAJA-Asia also offers specific programs for students with an interest in journalism based in the Asia Pacific Region.
Please check past and upcoming events below. In addition, AAJA-Asia student members are welcome to join the numerous Programs and Initiatives for students offered by AAJA in the US.
Upcoming events:
AAJA-Asia Convo Sessions : A Talk with Juyoung Choi (Al Jazeera Media Network)
Saturday 16 September, 2023 – 19:00 to 20:30 SGT / HKT
“Convo Sessions’ are student-led events organized by AAJA-Asia student representatives for the benefit of current or recent graduate univ students with an interest in learning about media & multiplatform storytelling. Sessions feature exclusive online conversations with news professionals and networking among students from across the Asia Pacific region. The active contribution of all participants is warmly encourage during the event.
Program
- 19:00 Participants welcome
- 19:10 Networking and introductions
- 19:20 Speaker Juyoung Choi presents: Digital Journalism – The Power of Empathy in Storytelling
- 19:50 Free Q&As and networking
GUEST SPEAKER
Juyoung Choi works as a digital producer at Al Jazeera Media Network in Qatar. She leads the planning and sharing of content on Al Jazeera’s social media platforms and creates engaging social videos for Al Jazeera Newsfeed. Previously, she was a reporting fellow at the Pulitzer Center, focusing on stories about the Middle East and East Asia. Juyoung studied Media Industries and Technology at Northwestern University.
Register here
Past events:
AAJA-Asia Convo Sessions : A Talk with Grace Shao (FGS Global)
Tuesday 5 September, 2023 – 19:00 to 20:30 SGT / HKT
“Convo Sessions’ are student-led events organized by AAJA-Asia student representatives for the benefit of current or recent graduate univ students with an interest in learning about media & multiplatform storytelling. Sessions feature exclusive online conversations with news professionals and networking among students from across the Asia Pacific region. The active contribution of all participants is warmly encourage during the event.
Program
- 19:00 Participants welcome
- 19:10 Networking and introductions
- 19:20 Speaker Grace Shao presents: Media Landscape in Asia & Interacting with PR
- 19:50 Free Q&As and networking
GUEST SPEAKER
Grace Shao is Associate Director at FGS Global in Hong Kong. In this position, she advises clients on critical issues, media relations, geopolitical challenges and corporate positioning. Prior to her current position, Grace was part of Alibaba’s International Corporate Affairs team. Grace was trained as a journalist at Columbia University. She has been a business reporter at CGTN and a multimedia reporter at CNBC.
AAJA-Asia Convo Sessions : A Talk with Sarah Wong (Reuters)
Friday 5 August, 2023 – 19:00 to 20:30 SGT / HKT
“Convo Sessions’ are student-led events organized by AAJA-Asia student representatives for the benefit of current or recent graduate univ students with an interest in learning about media & multiplatform storytelling. Sessions feature exclusive online conversations with news professionals and networking among students from across the Asia Pacific region. The active contribution of all participants is warmly encourage during the event.
Program
- 19:00 Participants welcome
- 19:10 Networking and introductions
- 19:20 Speaker Sarah Wong presents
- 19:50 Free Q&As and networking
GUEST SPEAKER
Sarah Wong is intrigued by the convergence of law, business, and politics. She is currently a Hong Kong-based Journalist at Thomson Reuters’ Asian Legal Business, keeping abreast of the evolving legal landscape, industry trends and law firm strategies for Asia’s foremost legal news outlet. Wong defines herself as a geopolitics geek enthralled by everything from political economy, and global security, to public policies. From a broader perspective, Wong set herself the mission to revolutionize the media landscape with intellectual conversations. By asking questions and questioning the answers, she aims to induce meaningful debates and conducive arguments that could transform our society beyond irrational polarization. Wong speaks fluent English, Cantonese and Mandarin. In her spare time, I enjoy reading non-fictions, watching documentaries, and am is sports fan at large.
AAJA-Asia Convo Sessions : A Talk with Rachel Yeo (CANCELLED)
Friday 28 July, 2023 – 19:00 to 20:30 SGT / HKT
Due to unforeseen circumstances, we regret to announce the 28 July event is cancelled.
AAJA-Asia Convo Sessions : A Talk with Anthony Kuhn (NPR)
Friday 14 July, 2023 – 19:00 to 20:30 SGT / HKT
“Convo Sessions’ are student-led events organized by AAJA-Asia student representatives for the benefit of current or recent graduate univ students with an interest in learning about media & multiplatform storytelling. Sessions feature exclusive online conversations with news professionals and networking among students from across the Asia Pacific region. The active contribution of all participants is warmly encouraged during the event.
Program
- 19:00 Participants welcome
- 19:10 Networking and introductions
- 19:20 Speaker Anthony Kuhn presents
- 19:50 Free Q&As and networking
GUEST SPEAKER
Anthony Kuhn is NPR’s correspondent based in Seoul, South Korea, reporting on the Korean Peninsula, Japan, and the great diversity of Asia’s countries and cultures. Before moving to Seoul in 2018, he traveled to the region to cover major stories including the North Korean nuclear crisis and the Fukushima earthquake and nuclear disaster. Kuhn previously served two five-year stints in Beijing, China, for NPR, during which he covered major stories such as the Beijing Olympics, geopolitical jousting in the South China Sea, and the lives of Tibetans, Uighurs, and other minorities in China’s borderlands. From 2010-2013, Kuhn was NPR’s Southeast Asia correspondent, based in Jakarta, Indonesia. He also followed Myanmar’s democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, as she rose from political prisoner to head of state. Kuhn also served as NPR’s correspondent in London from 2004-2005, covering stories including the London subway bombings and the marriage of the Prince of Wales to the Duchess of Cornwall.
Online Training Workshop: Digital Tools for Reporting
Saturday 22 July, 2023 – 2:00 to 4:00 pm SGT / HKT
This online session meant for students will present an overview of the latest, free online tools and workflows that journalists can use for finding, visualizing and telling news stories. The workshop will focus on how to search for and monitor news stories trends online and on how to use geo-localization and visualization tools to improve storytelling. It will cover the following tools/topics:
- Google Drive and tools
- Advanced Search
- Google Trends
- Alerts + Archiving
- Monitoring the Environment
Trainer
Dain Oh is an award-winning cybersecurity journalist based in South Korea and the founding editor-in-chief of The Readable. Prior to The Readable, she worked for The Electronic Times, the top IT newspaper in Korea, covering the cybersecurity industry on an in-depth level. She reported numerous exclusive stories, and her work related to the National Intelligence Service led to her being honored with the Journalist of the Year Award in 2021 by the Korea Institute of Information Security and Cryptology in a unanimous decision.
Fact-checking & Source Verification
Saturday 13 May, 2023 – 2:00 to 4:00 pm HKT/SGT
This session, offered in partnership with the Google News Initiative (GNI, will present a fast-paced overview of the most up-to-date issues and practices in online verification. It will also look at the free Google tools, and the best alternatives, used by fact-checkers worldwide to check stories and debunk hoaxes. It will cover the following topics:
- Common newsroom mistakes
- Reverse image/video searches
- Deepfakes
- Social media monitoring
- Sourcing and Attribution
This session will be led by a professional journalist certified as a trainer by the Google News Initiative. It will be a great opportunity for you to connect with students from all over Asia who share your interest in journalism.
Trainer
Cat Thomas is a freelance journalist and editor based in Taipei, Taiwan, writing on a variety of beats including human rights and migrant labour, and provides broadcast coverage for major events. She was a contributing editor for the 2022 N3 Mag and a recipient of the AAJA Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Reporting Fellowship in 2021/22.
The Asian American Journalists Association Asia Chapter (AAJA-Asia)’s N3COnU Mentorship Program is a unique opportunity for students to develop reporting skills under the mentorship of industry professionals. A cohort of 10 students will participate in a series of trainings and will get to write stories covering the journalism industry and underrepresented communities in the Asia Pacific region. Top stories will be published on the website of AAJA-Asia’s New.Now.Next Media Conference (N3Con) 2023. Students and mentors selected for the program will receive complimentary registration to attend the N3Con 2023 conference on May 25-27 in Singapore.
Applications closed on April 7 for both mentors and mentees.
- If you are a student with an interest in journalism studying in the Asia Pacific region: This is your opportunity to enrich your CV with reporting training sessions and a story that you will write under the guidance of a professional journalist. You will also get a chance to get your story published on the N3Con.com website, a platform regularly viewed by news media professionals from across the region.
- If you are a journalist working in the Asia Pacific region. This is your chance to hone your editing skills, provide encouragements and guidance and help the next generation of professional reporters to blossom.
Key Program dates
- March 10: Applications open
- April 7: Application close
- April 27: Story assignments confirmed
- May 13: Fact-Checking and Source Verification Workshop (online)
- May 22: Deadline for Story submissions
- May 25-27: New.Now.Next Media Conference in Singapore
- July 15: Digital Tools for Reporting Workshop (online)
For more information about the program or any question you may have, please contact asia@aaja.org
Journalism in Singapore: Making a career in the news industry
Join us for a panel discussion with journalist Nicholas Yong (BBC) and reporter JP Ong (CNBC) on navigating the news industry in Singapore, their experiences reporting, and best practices of journalism.
The event is co-organized by Yale-NUS Writers’ Centre and the Asian American Journalists Association.
Date: Tuesday, 14 March, 7:30pm to 9:00pm
Venue: Rector’s Commons (Level 22) in Saga College within Yale-NUS College
Directions/Address: Saga College has a direct entrance, here’s also the Google Maps listing for reference at 10 College Ave West, Singapore 138609.
More information and registration link here
Past events:
- Fact-checking and Sources Verification workshop for Students in Journalism – Saturday 3 December 2022: By Cat Thomas, Freelance Journalist and editor
- N3ConU session at AAJA-Asia’a New.Now.Next Media Conference 2022 – Saturday 30 July 2022: By Yehoon Ahn Student, Yale-NUS College; Nile Bowie Editor & Correspondent, Asia Times; Jane Christine Zhang Former senior writer, Mothership; Sheryl Lee Co-VP for South East Asia, AAJA-Asia
- AAJA-Asia Student Mentor Match Program – Saturday 23 October 2021: By YooHee Hong, Silicon Valley Bureau Chief, NewsPicks; Kari Soo Lindberg, Reporter, Bloomberg; Sheryl Lee, Multimedia journalist, Mongabay; Rebecca Isjwara, Reporter, S&P Global Market Intelligence; Rachel Yeo, Reporter, SCMP; Holly Chik, Reporter, South China Morning Post
- Special Online Session for Singapore Students in Journalism – Saturday 11 September 2021: By Dexter Lin, AAJA-Asia Student Representative; Tom Benner, AAJA co-Vice President, Singapore and Southeast Asia; Gilles Demptos, Director for Asia Pacific, AAJA-Asia; Joon-Nie Lau, Director, WAN-IFRA APAC.
- N3ConU session at AAJA-Asia’a New.Now.Next Media Conference 2021 – Saturday 7 August 2021: By Eric Tu Co-CEO / Founder EST Media, Inc., Jaeson Ma Chairman / Co-CEO / Founder EST Media, Inc.; Kantaro Komiya Journalist, The Associated Press; Sheryl Lee Co-VP for South East Asia, AAJA-Asia; Grace Moon Global Audience Editor, The Washington Post; Kari Soo Lindberg Reporter, Bloomberg