AAJA Seattle

Sanjay Bhatt jumped into journalism in 1996, landing his first job at The Times Leader, a daily in Wilkes-Barre, Pa. He juggled covering 12 school districts and loved turning out enterprising, investigative pieces. Within a year, he got hired by The Palm Beach Post of West Palm Beach, Fla., where he spent the next six years building a reputation as a top health reporter. The biggest story he covered there was the 2001 anthrax investigation. In 2003, he joined The Seattle Times, where he has examined public schools, neighborhood issues, the economic crisis and local government. He enjoys producing mini-documentaries, trying new ideas online and learning new technologies.

The “Sea Beez” ethnic media project is holding a roundtable on best practices in journalism from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Sept. 23 at KOMO’s Fisher Plaza.
In May, AAJA Seattle and the Seattle Association of Black Journalists (SABJ) co-hosted the launch party for the Sea Beez project, which aims to build the capacity of [...]

With only four months left in 2010, our chapter continues to offer great programs and events. Mark your calendars!
Sept. 11, afternoon: AAJA Seattle annual summer picnic. Golden Gardens. FREE. Bring your spouse, kids and anyone else who’s special.
Sept. 21, 11 am-4:30 pm: AAJA members get the SPJ discount to their Freelancer’s Survival Guide conference at [...]

(Yakima Herald-Republic reporter Mai Hoang, NJC scholarship winner Peter Sessum and Founder’s Scholarship winners Katelin Chow and Mary Pauline Diaz.)
“Back to the Future” was the motto of this year’s AAJA National Convention in Los Angeles.
Aside from being the title of one of my favorite movies as a kid, “Back to the Future” succinctly captures this [...]

Congratulations to Susan Han, a senior producer for the Seattle Channel, who received two regional Emmy awards.
Her weekly Seattle Channel public affairs program, City Inside/Out, was recognized in two categories – political/government program and interview/discussion program.
Han is a 2007 graduate of the AAJA Executive Leadership Program in New York City and co-chaired the Northwest [...]

Just days after attending a panel discussion on mobile advertising, I spotted a blog post on Poynter about news organizations hiring people to develop strategy for delivering news on mobile devices. Apparently, the Orlando Sentinel, CNN.com and Philly.com have each dedicated resources to paying attention to their presence on cell phones – particularly smartphones like [...]

On Thursday night, I attended a panel discussion on mobile advertising put on by TiE-Seattle, a not-for-profit group dedicated to fostering and supporting entrepreneurship. TiE-Seattle is part of a global network born in the early 1990s when Silicon Valley entrepreneurs of South Asian heritage decided to hold regular meetups.
The panel discussion certainly had some noteworthy [...]

The Executive Development Institute presents a 2010 Leadership Together Educational Forum – “Invasion of Social Media – the Good, the Bad and the Ugly!” – on Tuesday, June 22, at The Seattle Times.
The event is sponsored in part by the National Association of Asian-American Professionals (NAAAP) and Qwest’s Pacific Asian American Network (PAAN).
Speaker: Charlie [...]

AAJA student member Peter Sessum, a three-time recipient of Northwest Journalists of Color scholarship who writes for The Daily, documented the event and wrote up 10 Twitter lessons he learned at our AAJA Seattle’s first Innovation Salon:
1. Be yourself. While Twitter can be used for business, it is expression of who you are. Relationships [...]

The 3 E’s for Twitter updates: Make it engaging, educational, or entertaining. – Chef Becky Selengut

On Wednesday evening, a new ethnic media web project held its launch party at The Seattle Times.
The project is led by AAJA member Julie Pham, who is managing editor of the family-owned Northwest Vietnamese News.
Sea Beez has its seed funding from the City of Seattle Department of Neighborhoods and represents the newest “hive” for New America [...]