What is JCamp?JCamp is a one week intensive national multicultural journalism program for culturally diverse students. Participants learn from and are mentored by veteran journalists working at the Washington Post, Bloomberg, Minneapolis StarTribune, the Wall Street Journal, and the Center for Public Integrity. Speakers for the program include executives at NBCUniversal, LA Times Executive Editor Kevin Merida, CNN, MSNBC, and CBS correspondents, POLITICO Managing Editor for Policy and News Clea Benson, an AP White House correspondent, and the team at American Public Media's "Marketplace."
I was selected as one of 25 students out of a record hundreds of applicants from around the country for the Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA)'s JCamp 2022. It was a truly amazing and once in a lifetime experience. Being able to meet 25 other diverse and talented student journalists from across the country and from various socio-economic backgrounds gave me more perspective on what being a journalist means. |
AAJA Family
Being at this camp and interacting with other AAPI journalists also emphasized the importance of diversity in journalism to me. When I had the opportunity to ask the AAJA's president a question, I chose to ask her why it was so important for organizations like it to exist. Her answer stuck with me: "if not us, who else?" Who else would stand up for our own communities and other marginalized groups? The AAJA and its sister organizations all stand up for their own communities and others, and help make newsrooms an inclusive and welcoming space for everyone, making it possible for publications to better cover and understand the communities they cover.
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Highlights
- Hosted by the University of Southern California's AAJA chapter and the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism
- Speakers including LA Times Executive Editor, LA Times editors and reporters, various broadcasters, a POLITICO editor, an AP congressional correspondent, and more.