AAJA President Receives 2024 Sheroes in Media Award

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“It’s a very diverse world, and we need to see that,” says Nicole Dungca, president of the Asian American Journalists Association and an award-winning reporter. “We’re all hoping to change the media so that it does reflect the communities that we cover. There has been some change, and we’re really thankful for it. But we all know there is a long way to go as well.”

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Dungca grew up in a very multiracial, multicultural environment in the Bay Area, but when she started working in the news business, she was struck by racially near-monochromatic newsrooms that hardly reflected the actual make-up of a metropolitan area.

“When I started working at legacy media outlets, I noticed that I didn’t see myself in the newsroom as much as I saw myself in the communities I grew up with,” she says.

To this end, AAJA is devoted to making sure that the pipeline within newsrooms includes Asian Pacific Islander (API) journalists and other people of color, “so that we can really accurately reflect the world around us, because that’s our job.”

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Helping to provide a sense of community “was so important for us when we're going through the pandemic,” she says. “And also now, when we’re going through a tough time in media with layoffs all across the industry, we’re really trying to provide support for those people who have been affected by some of the shifts in media.”

AAJA has also had the challenge of working for members who, simply on the basis of race, have been victims and potential victims of focused anti-Asian hate violence. “We have a media watchdog committee at AAJA that always works to make sure that we are watchdogging media coverage to make sure that there are no stigmatizing stereotypes,” she says.

“When the gunman killed women of Asian descent in Atlanta, we wanted to make sure that the coverage didn’t traffic in any stereotypes. We wanted to make sure they use the right terms. And we’re aware of the history of hypersexualization that has really affected Asian American women in history, and made sure that there was context for all of API for history and violence and discrimination that we were seeing.”

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A two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist for her work at the Boston Globe and Washington Post, Ms. Dungca has always found AAJA and its members to be an inspiration, from the time she got her start injournalism – as a 15-year old intern at Philippines Magazine, published by Mona Lisa Yuchengo in South San Francisco. “She really showed me that I have a career in journalism.”

“A lot of the leaders at AAJA have been really important in having a big imprint on my life. They were the ones who saw potential in me before I did myself and able to tell me that I could be a leader. And for that, I’m really thankful.”

Publishable story by Richard Leiby Courtesy  BIPOCXChange

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