March 2007

AAJA meeting minutes March 25, 2007

In attendance: Emma Carew, Tom Lee, Lewis Leung, Nancy Yang

Absent: Mary Tan

Tardy: Nancy Ngo

NEXT MEETING: TBA, may be before/after reception for international journalists in mid-April.

PRISM:

§ Interview derby scheduled for April 28. PRISM is organizing a career-building event where students will do mock interviews with journalists. Might be a clip review, doing a mock job interview, etc. PRISM is looking for as many journalists from as many disciplines as possible. Emma would need to know by April 2.

§ Interview: 1-4 p.m., networking hour is set for 4-5 p.m.

Miami board meeting update:

§ Scholarships: Boston has internship opportunities for all student members.

§ The Minnesota chapter will be audited in 2009. National does regular routine audits of random chapters each year.

§ For the national convention, we will be responsible for the national scholarships. We will need to identify judges and select winners.

§ Revamp of some national policies: Talk about advertising on the national Web site, we target media companies first. Talked about having smaller committee to discuss whether nonmedia companies should be approved (Wal-Mart was approved for Hawaii). Local MediaWatch rep has always been a voluntary position from each chapter. Now it is a requirement that each chapter have one.

Mini-summit:

§ Set a meeting for officers and anyone else who wants to come. We would talk about what’s happening with the industry locally given that we have new owners.

§ We should try to do it before the Unity picnic, maybe in May? Once we agree on a date would can set an agenda.

Fundraiser money:

§ Wells Fargo may have a spring/summer fundraiser with all proceeds going to AAJA.

§ Amount may total $20K-$30K.

§ Tom talked to Lynda McDonnell and discussed whether we could donate some of the money to the ThreeSixty program to allow news printing of 2,000 copies of students’ stories.

§ Estimated cost to cover printing is $500.

§ 4-0 in favor. (Tom, Lewis, Emma, Nancy Y.)

§ Unity picnic scheduled for July 6 at Boom Island (picnic with local TCBJ, AAJA, NAHJ).

§ However, Star Tribune Foundation no longer exists. They previously gave $300 for the event. Duschesne asked that AAJA/NABJ split the cost at $150 each.

§ At the mixer, Neal suggested we explore the idea of creating a foundation to help fund nonjournalism-related groups/efforts.

§ Nancy said she worries we aren’t qualified to make those decisions and that we may be stepping out of our missions and goals. We should focus on making sure we meet our goals instead of branching out.

§ Emma suggested we look within the AA community specifically – maybe do a toy drive for poor AA students, etc.

§ Tom said we should start doing a better job of marketing ourselves to our members rather than start other initiatives. The industry is also so chaotic that now may not be the time to broaden our mission.

§ Nancy N. said maybe we should gauge member reaction before we try to branch out – ask if we are doing enough for them.

§ Tom said maybe to get more students involved we open up events to any students. Maybe sponsor a contest a la “Best in Student Journalism.” We can connect with college students and encourage them to put their best work out. Offer a prize. Maybe we can partner with another organization to give it more potency – AAJA/TCBJ or AAJA and the J-school.

§ Emma said it would give AAJA a huge visibility and students would be interested because most just want an award on their resume. A theme would be difficult because most students don’t have resumes. Perhaps we just leave it as general categories: Best spot news, best photo, best feature writing, etc.

§ Tom will start making calls and update at the next meeting.

Convention:

§ Send note to members and to Strib and PiPress newsrooms that convention grants are available. Also let them know about early registration.

§ Four grants up to $300 available for convention and grants.

NEXT MEETING AGENDA: TBA