MEDIA EVENT: Unity Convention in Chicago hosts 6,000 journalists

About 6,000 journalists are in Chicago this week for the Unity Convention, the quadrennial gathering of minority journalists. Even though SAJA isn't one of the core Unity groups - only the National Association of Black Journalists; National Association of Hispanic Journalists; Native American Journalists Association; and Asian American Journalists Association are part of Unity - dozens of SAJAers are in attendance (more info on the history of Unity and SAJA's relationship with it below).

SAJA, led by president Sandeep Junnarkar and local ABC anchor, Ravi Baichwal, hosted a late-night toast on Thursday night and more than a hundred SAJAers and friends showed up (many thanks to Kiran Khalid, Diana LaVigne and Deepti Hajela for putting it together). The Arab and Middle Eastern Journalists Association, another small non-Unity group, joined us and we all got to hang out (photos below).

Lots of opportunities for South Asian spotting at Unity, as you will see in the pictures, including a giant poster of Dr. Sanjay Gupta holding pride of place in the CNN job fair booth.

On Saturday, former SAJA board member and WSJ economics reporter Sudeep Reddy will be moderating a special SAJA-AAJA panel on India and China.

And on Sunday, Sen. Barack Obama will be addressing the group (Sen. John McCain is a no-show) and one of the moderators for the session is Romesh Ratnesar of Time, along with CNN's Suzanne Malveaux.

SOME BACKGROUND: SAJA was not around when the first Unity convention, in Atlanta in 1994, was being planned. In the years since, SAJA has opted to work with AAJA instead of even trying to join Unity as a partner member. It was never made clear to us what it would take to be a full member, but as a group with no paid staff, a small budget and around 750 paid members, we wouldn't have the bandwidth it would take to coordinate the logistics anyway.

We completely support Unity and encourage our members to attend (by joining AAJA) and three current and former SAJA presidents (Sandeep Junnarkar, Deepti Hajela, Sree Sreenivasan), along with several board members are attending this year. Several SAJAers are on panels and working the recruiting booths, etc. On Thursday night, SAJA co-hosted with the Arab and Middle Eastern Journalists Association, a late-night toast that drew more than a hundred folks.

See an article about SAJA and Unity from the 1999 Seattle convention - by Apoorva Mandavilli - and see photos from that gathering (that's Jesse Jackson, back in the news these days, in one of the pix).
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Comments

[Gitika Ahuja]

Thanks for hosting a fantastic gathering ...It was awesome to see SAJA-ers representing at Unity!!