Saturday 11 Sept, 4:00 to 5:00 pm SGT
Thanks to the support of the US Embassy in Singapore, AAJA-Asia has been able to offer free membership and tickets to its annual conference, the New.Now.Next Media conference in 2020 and 2021. As a wrap up of this initiative, AAJA-Asia and the US Embassy in Singapore are organizing a special online session open to all Singapore based students with an interest in journalism on Saturday 11 September, from 4:00 to 5:00 pm (SGT).
This session will be a unique opportunity to:
- Gain insights from young journalists and veteran media professionals about working as a journalist in Singapore and other APAC locations.
- Share your experiences as an attendee – or a volunteer at – N3Con with fellow participants and other students.
- Learn about AAJA-Asia’s latest projects and opportunities for students to engage and contribute to an Asia wide community of journalists and students in journalism.
PROGRAMME
- Working as a Journalist in Singapore and Beyond today: Prospects, Challenges and Opportunities
- Trending Topics for Young Journalists: Lessons Learnt from N3COn 2020 and 2021
- From Digital Tools Training to Mentor Match program and Diversity Projects, what’s up for students at AAJA-Asia?
Register here to attend the session
SPEAKERS

Dexter Lin, AAJA-Asia Student Representative
Dexter is a third-year history major at Yale-NUS College in Singapore. He has been interested in journalism since he was a kid, creating his own newspaper (handwritten and hand-drawn!) and selling them for five cents each in Primary school. Today, he is most interested in Orientalism in media and the effects that it has on the general public. As the student representative to the board, Dexter plans to promote AAJA to budding journalists across universities in Asia through networking sessions and programs. Outside of his work and studies, he is a national sprinter for Singapore, specializing in the 100m race.

Tom Benner, AAJA co-Vice President, Singapore and Southeast Asia
Tom Benner is a Singapore-based journalist. He writes news stories for Al Jazeera English, columns for Mainichi Shimbun’s bilingual news magazine Mainichi Weekly, and works as a copy editor and fact-checker at Forbes Asia. He has served as editor of N3Magazine, the official publication of N3Conference. He became an elected board member of the Singapore Press Club in 2013 and joined the AAJA-Asia board in 2019. Before relocating to Singapore from Boston, Mass., in 2012, Tom worked in the US as a statehouse bureau chief, editorial writer, and editor of a street paper.

Gilles Demptos, Director for Asia Pacific, AAJA-Asia
Gilles is the Director for Asia Pacific of the Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA). Prior to joining this organization, Gilles has worked at advancing press freedom and the sustainability of quality, independent journalism for over 15 years at WAN-IFRA, the World Association of News publishers, in particular as Director of Asia between 2014 and 2018. More recently, Gilles was heading Public Policy and Government Affairs APAC for the news and media industries at Google. Gilles has also been the editor of the Asian Newsmedia Focus magazine for almost a decade.

Joon-Nie Lau, Director, WAN-IFRA APAC
Joon-Nie is the Director for Asia of WAN-IFRA, The World Association of News Publishers. A lawyer by training, Joon-Nie spent over 15 years in broadcast television as a reporter, interactive producer, current affairs producer and news editor at Channel News Asia and its predecessors SBC News and TCS News. Besides being a Vice-President of the Singapore Press Club for over 16 years and co-founding the Hacks/Hackers Singapore chapter in 2015, Joon-Nie is also a regular speaker and trainer at conferences, workshops and industry panels both locally and abroad.