Thank you to all who stepped up to volunteer their time and expertise to serve AAJA-Asia in 2019. The candidates and their letters of candidacy are below:
Vice President, Seoul
Carina Lee & Jihye Lee (co-candidates)
The best thing about AAJA is celebrating our diversity — our walks of life, how each and every one of our cultural identities were formed, shaped and molded again and again a thousand times. How we all got here, and where we’ll go next, no single story is the same, and every member’s unique stories are what makes the Seoul chapter such an amazing group to be a part of. The Seoul chapter represents a growing generation of embracing what stories are different from our own. In a universe that still “fears what they don’t know,” celebrating that diversity is crucial to newsrooms that deliver to the world what is currently happening. We have learned so much from the wide range of: students looking for career advice and AAJA members who connect with the local chapter We want to continue that celebration by representing this awesome chapter as your VPs.
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National Advisory Board Representative
K. Oanh Ha
I’ve been proud to serve as the national board representative for the Asia chapter, advocating for members and making sure our concerns and needs are heard. To maximize my effectiveness as chapter president, it’s important for me to engage as the national board representative and participate in decisions that affect all of us around APAC. I’d like to continue exploring how we can bring national programming and training to Asia, such as the Executive Leadership Program, and strengthen our ties with sister chapters in the U.S. Thanks for your support and the opportunity to serve AAJA-Asia.
Secretary
Mark Zastrow
For the past two years, I’ve been on the Asia chapter board as a VP from Seoul. In that time, I’ve taken on maintaining the chapter roster and moving our mailing list over to Mailchimp, as well as working on the N3Con website. I’m running for secretary so that I can focus on this work for the chapter.
I pledge to improve member communications with more timely membership renewal reminders, refresh our chapter website, and to start a monthly chapter-wide newsletter highlighting AAJA-Asia news and work from our members to help us stay connected with each other around the region.
Student Representative
Sheryl Lee Tian Tong & Chloe Lim Jia Hui (co-candidates)
Sheryl Lee Tian Tong, to serve January – May 2020:
I’m Sheryl, a Singaporean student graduating in May. I’ve interned with Bloomberg in Hong Kong and The Straits Times in Singapore. Along the way, I’ve seen passionate and promising friends leave journalism because of the challenges the industry is facing. I’m running for student representative for the January 2020–May 2020 term because it is important to me that through AAJA-Asia, we make it easier for eager young journalists to stay in and develop careers in journalism. AAJA-Asia is uniquely effective because beyond being a network that provides career development opportunities, it is a warm, genuine and welcoming group that is easy to love – and being part of a community of journalists and media professionals is fortifying. I’m excited for students interested in journalism to know of and join AAJA-Asia, and continue the dialogue between AAJA-Asia and schools on what students need and what opportunities the association can best provide.
Chloe Lim Jia Hui, to serve June – December 2020:
My name is Chloe Lim, and I am a third-year undergraduate student at Yale-NUS College in Singapore. I am running for student representative of the Asian-American Journalists Association (Asia Chapter) (AAJA-Asia) for June 2020—December 2021. I am interested in being the student representative for AAJA-Asia as I am committed to bridging the gap between student communities and journalists. Working with journalists behind the AAJA-Asia chapter has been an immensely rewarding and eye-opening experience thus far, and I would be incredibly excited to organize related AAJA-Asia activities and promote membership opportunities on campus. As an advocate of student journalism, I would love to understand what students and faculty alike wish to learn more about journalism and testify to what opportunities AAJA-Asia can provide for schools. Lastly, I will be able to connect with like-minded students passionate about journalism and relate my positive experiences in the field and with AAJA-Asia.
All current, dues-paying AAJA-Asia members will receive a ballot via email. Ballots will be accepted until November 5, 11:59 pm Hong Kong time.