SAJAforum

CONV: Photos of the 2008 Convention by Preston Merchant

All pictures by Preston Merchant. For more click here.

The luminous Tannishtha Chatterjee talks about her role in "Brick Lane," the film adaptation of Monica Ali's novel about a Bangladeshi family in Britain. Chatterjee spoke after a special screening of the film one day before its US release.

Manu Narayan (center), who co-stars with Mike Meyers in "The Love Guru," shares a meal with Diana Rohini LaVigne, Sree Sreenivasan, and Sugi Ganeshananthan.

Nikhil Deogun, international editor of the Wall Street Journal, speaks at the opening plenary session.

Amitava Kumar leads his popular seminar on long-form narrative writing.

Photographers Dipti Vaidya of The Tennessean and Adam Huggins of The New York Times, with Annalisa Merelli, at the reception at the new New York Times building.

CONV: Panelists speak on covering the economy in a time of crisis

Reporters covering the housing crisis should be more aware of what their readers’ want to read  about, and write stories that are self explanatory, said panelists speaking on “Covering the Economy in a Time of Crisis” at the SAJA convention.

The panelists were Steve Liesman, a reporter for CNBC; Jennifer Ablan, reporter for ThomsonReuters; Jon Hilsenrath, an editor in the Money and Investing section of The Wall Street Journal; and, Barbara Kiviat, a reporter for Time magazine. Vikas Bajaj, a reporter for The New York Times, moderated the panel.

The panelists discussed how the current credit crisis was something no one knew much about. The ingredients of the crisis and what led to the crisis were beyond common awareness. And, to a certain extent, beyond the depth of journalists' knowledge.

“We were writing stories in The Wall Street Journal in the summer in 2005 that looked like the housing boom was over,” Hilsenrath said. “We did good on macro ... but we didn’t go two, three, four layers deep.”

Once reporters did get in to the complex and opaque workings of the financial world, the challenge lay in explaining this to a broad audience.

“We have to sell this thing to a general readership,” Time's Kiviat said.

Panelists Steve Liesman of CNBC, Barbara Kiviat of Time, Jon Hilsenrath of The Wall Street Journal, and Jennifer Ablan of Reuters at the SAJA convention.

CONV: Aisha Sultan on pitching a column

Aisha Sultan loves to write about dirty diapers, working mothers and grocery shopping. And she loves that her own experience with motherhood led her to becoming a columnist and editor at  the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

"I figured if I cared about a subject that much, I could write about it and touch people," she said.

The road to becoming one of the first South Asian columnists in U.S. didn't follow a marked route, Sultan said at a session during the SAJA convention. Sultan studied sociology at Trinity University in Texas, and started writing when she found a job at her school newspaper.

She remained a sociology major until on her way to obtaining a doctorate degree she found that she wasn't sure.

"I really missed the ink, I missed journalism," she said.

When The Wall Street Journal offered her an internship, she couldn't turn it down. Eventually, the experience led her to her job with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch as a reporter.

After ten years of reporting and two kids, Sultan's big idea began to unfurl. She realized that her life as a young working mother was under represented in the news.

With her personal experience in mind, Sultan crafted a pitch that included a column, blog and interactive forum for parents. It was subject matter that had not really been explored at other publications. After thorough research and a digital presentation, she was ready to put her thoughts in motion.

"I became like Al Gore with my Power Point," she said. "Every editor I found, I grabbed and made them watch."

CONV: ESPN Anchor Kevin Negandhi to debut on SportsCenter

The dreams of a 14-year-old sports fanatic will come true on Friday when ESPN sportscaster Kevin Negandhi makes his debut on SportsCenter.

Negandhi, the first national South Asian sports announcer in the U.S. who spoke at the SAJA convention, joked that his parents will finally believe that he has a real job now.

"My mom still wants me to be a lawyer," he said, laughing.

His upbringing in an Indian household provided Negandhi with a strong work ethic but no role models in his chosen field of sports journalism. He decided to get as much hands-on experience as possible, and had five internships at radio and television stations on his resume by the time he graduated from Temple University.

Negandhi's  trategy was to start his career working in smaller markets, which would give him a chance to fine tune his skills without embarassing himself in front of a large national audience. He worked on developing his own style, an on-air voice that matched his personality. Eventually, he said an anchor has to learn to transfer his own personality on screen.

"You gotta just be yourself," he said. "If you're not yourself, the audience will figure it out."

His first jobs taught him to be aware that things constantly changed in sports. To broaden his expertise, he covered basketball, baseball and football. But his favorite is football, both NFL and college leagues.

"I think college football could be the best sport in America if we had a true playoff system," he said.      

Negandhi said he works on forming relationships with athletes by being the guy who asks them questions that dig deeper. His favorite interview: "The guy who really stands out is Warrick Dunn from the Bucs; he's just a great guy."

CONV: Dressing for dinner: Desi or not?

A silk kurta from New Delhi and a flourish of other bright-colored fabrics will rent the air tonight at the SAJA convention's gala dinner and awards ceremony.

Dimitra DeFotis, staff writer for Barron’s, is the one with a silk kurta that she picked up in New Delhi.

The dinner is expected to draw journalists and others to an event that celebrates South Asians and coverage of South Asian news in the U.S. Good food,fun and colorful clothing are also on the menu.

SAJA Board Member Aseem Chhabra wants to win the raffle at the event for people who wear ethnic clothing.

“I’ve a SAJA uniform I wear every year," Chhabra said. "A narrow collar jacket stitched in Delhi."

Chhabra, despite his sincere efforts, hasn't won the raffle yet.

Some are hoping a more traditional approach will work.

Rupa Ranganathan of Executive Research Institute International says she plan to wear a simple saree from South India.

Some folks, though, aren't going either way, preferring a fusion of fashions. Shefali Pandey, a student at Syracuse University, will drape a dupatta over her jeans to give it an ethnic touch.

Some aren't even considering desi influences. Vikas Bajaj, a reporter for The New York Times, will don a formal suit.

"This year I'll be on stage so I'm thinking of a suit; it's tailored in Bangkok," Bajaj said. 

CONV: Q&A with 2008 Daniel Pearl Fellow Umar Cheema

Umar Cheema, a reporter for the News International in Islamabad, Pakistan, is the 2008 Daniel Pearl Fellow at The New York Times. In a panel entitled "Pakistan in Peril" Cheema shared his experiences in the country, which is ranked as the third-most dangerous in the world for journalists.

Journalism has become more independent and is no longer scrutinized as much Cheema says in a conversation with student blogger Bibek Bhandari. Here are excerpts from that conversation.

How is your fellowship going at The New York Times?

I have worked in The New York Times’ metro section, computer-assisted reporting and investigative cluster, and went to the Investigative Reporters and Editors' workshop. I will spend two weeks in the Washington bureau of The New York Times. Then go to Los Angeles to meet Daniel Pearl’s parents and would spend time in Los Angeles Press Club discussing with them different issues about inter-faith harmony, because the purpose of this fellowship is to resolve conflicts, promote dialogues between different faiths.

I am learning about [American]  newsrooms, how they work, and consequently what could I take back home, and what new things could be improved there.

 

What are the major differences you notice between American newsrooms and the ones in Pakistan?

I think the major difference is in terms of resources. They are more resourceful here financially, and when you’re financially strong, you can deploy more staff, facilitate them in a better way.

Reporting skills are different. The U.S. media concentrates mostly on storytelling.

How to write a good story, and how to bring human angles to the story. And as far as our media is concerned, and when I say our, Asian media mostly where the press is relatively independent, there is an element of opinion in our reporting that we learned from the British media. The European media overall, it is considered as opinionated media. We sometimes editorialize in our reporting. We give our opinions. I think that is the difference.

In terms of society, the good things I have learned [in the U.S.] is that people respect each other’s opinion. If I disagree with you, it doesn’t mean I am against you. In Pakistani culture, if I disagree people believe that I am against them.

CONV: Plenary session on reporting from the trenches

Media professionals on the campaign trail talked of "living in a bubble", especially journalists embedded with a candidate's campaign, that sometimes could obstruct their view of broader issues and limits their ability to pursue stories beyond the stump speeches.

“It’s frustrating," said Leslie Wayne, reporter for The New York Times who covers politics. "You’re turning to a machine reporting from event to event."

Wayne was part of a panel discussion on “Decision ’08: Reporters in the Trenches” at the SAJA convention. Other panelists include Nick Timiraos, embedded in the Obama campaign for The Wall Street Journal; Rebecca Kutler, news producer at CNN; and, Aswini Anburajan, embedded in the Obama campaign for NBC.

But journalists, who had front-row seats to the primaries, say reporting was factual in response to questions on whether the coverage, especially of the Obama campaign, was unbiased.

Leslie Wayne, a New York Times reporter; Rebecca Kutler, a CNN producer; Nick Timiraos, a Wall Street Journal reporter; and, Aswini Anburajan, a NBC reporter.

 

CONV: Conversations on Diversity: Recruiters say more needs to be done

The list of hires is impressive: So far in 2008, eight South Asian journalists have been named to a range of leadership positions, from managing editor to bureau chief.

 

Those who care about diversity in media find that heartening, but warn that more needs to be done.

 

Recruiters at the 2008 SAJA convention were both optimistic and cautious when asked about the state of diversity in the county's newsrooms.

 

"More than one third of the American population is made up of people of color, but nowhere near that level of diversity is represented in the newsroom," said Ernest Sottomayor, Assistant Dean of Career Services at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

 

"Media companies need to have basic understanding that diversity is as important as accuracy," he said. "Our communities are getting more and more diverse and they need to get their views into the paper."

 

Recruiters meet with job candidates at the SAJA convention.

CONV: Remarks by NYT's Michael Golden and John Geddes

[Read more coverage of the 2008 SAJA Convention & Job Fair]

Despite the changes to the news business in the past decade, the basics of journalism remain the same.

These and other views on journalism, digital media, and diversity were shared by Michael Golden (top), vice chairman of the New York Times Company, and John Geddes (bottom), managing editor of its flagship newspaper, at a reception the paper hosted for attendees of the South Asian Journalists Association convention.

“In 30 years in this business I have never seen a time when there is so much change and so much at stake,” Golden said. “It is truly remarkable what’s going on right now.”

Golden drew attention to the crisis in the print media, especially in large cities like Dallas and Chicago where newspaper subscriptions are on a decline, and advertising revenues are “falling at an alarming rate.”

Changes in the ways people consume information, the economic downturn induced tightening of household budgets and advertiser spending have added to this gloomy picture, he said.

Golden said the core of the Times' success and strategy is its editorial content.

Geddes, one of the paper's two managing editors (the other is Jill Abramson), added that the accuracy of the Times in reporting the news has helped maintain its credibility among readers. "Telling truth and being accurate pays off,” Geddes said.

NYTimes.com's growing web audience, which reached 21 million users last month, has helped the Times broaden its reach to people across the country and the globe, Golden said. The Times has had to focus on the kind of information people want, and package it and present it the way they want it. “It has a mass market appeal,” Golden said.

But the Web site's popularity doesn't mean the newspaper will go away. “Print will be with us for a long time,” he said. 

But the broader coverage has helped the Times boost diversity within the newsroom, Golden said. In the past year, 14 percent of the Times' organization's new hires were of Asian descent.

Read full coverage of Robert Thomson, the managing editor of The Wall Street Journal's speech here.

Please post comments. Photos: Preston Merchant

 

CONV: Video of Robert Thomson's remarks and launch of SAJAtv

The 2008 SAJA Convention's opening keynote speech was delivered Robert Thomson, the new managing editor of the Wall Street Journal. It was one of his first public appearances since getting his new assignment last month. You can read full coverage of it here. Here are several short videos of major parts of his talk, from the just-launched SAJAtv channel on YouTube.

Robert Thomson on importance of international news:

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Robert Thomson on Rupert Murdoch:

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Watch more videos below.

CONV: Conversations on diversity: Strapped news budgets limit opportunities

When a tip came in about the opening of a large Hindu temple in Lilburn, Georgia, reporter Rahul Bali was the obvious choice in his radio station to cover the opening.

“They needed someone to bridge the gap,” he said. “I had to report, but also to educate.”      

His Indian background also played to his favor when he traveled through African-American neighborhoods in Atlanta.  Bali was seen as an unbiased observer since he wasn't identified as either a member of the black or white communities.

Although no longer in the South, Bali continues to be the only person of Indian origin at his current radio station, WTOP in the D.C. Metro area, where he is often assigned to topics with a multicultural element. After the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, he helped to inform a curious public about the Islamic society in America.   

As was the case in Bali's radio stations, much of the journalism world does not reflect the growing diversity of the population. And cuts to newsroom budgets are making the situation worse.   

CONV: Amar Bakshi and "How the World Sees America"

Punchy short-form writing, engaging video clips and a strong voice were the recipe for Amar C.  Bakshi’s multimedia blog series "How the World Sees America" for the online editions of the Washington Post and Newsweek as part of a project called PostGlobal.

[ PostGlobal, "a conversation on global issues with David Ignatius [of The Washington Post] and Fareed Zakaria [of Newsweek],"  is a joint effort of the Post and Newsweek and consists of commentary from the two of them, and assorted posting and commentary from other staffers and folks around the world.]

His subjects are varied: a drag queen in Pakistan, a female Lebanese rapper, pageant queens in England, a teacher at an Islamic school in India.

The stories range from prostitution to political leadership but with the common thread of how the global community feels about Americans and the U.S. government.

Bakshi, 24, spent one month in a country, putting a human face on the sentiments and looking beyond the blanket criticisms.
“My value added is bringing a bit of a humanistic, artistic sensibility to more mundane stories that wouldn’t be told,” he told a group at the SAJA convention.

He found his sources by listening to conversations at bus stops, bars and restaurants. Contacts with local journalists and doctoral students also helped him create relationships with compelling sources.
Learning how to narrate their tales came with experience.

A one-man show, Bakshi toted his high-definition Sony video camera around with him for hours, familiarizing his sources to the screen. His intention was to have people forget about the camera altogether, and in a few hours they usually did.

“For me it’s discovery,” he said. “Trying to be empathetic, and trying to tell stories that are worth telling.”

He edited the video clips to concise, one- to two-minute segments. Sometimes a voice over accompanies local images, sometimes the screen remains fixed on a subject’s face as they speak.

CONV: Tabla student plans documentary on Indian classical music

She is an outsider to the Indian culture and language, but there is something that connects Sandi Higgins to it — music.

Higgins, who studied film production at the New York University, is an avid admirer of Indian classical music, and currently is producing a documentary on the reception of classical Indian music in the West, especially New York.

“It’s not a music system, it’s a philosophy of life,” Higgins said.

 

CONV: "Brick Lane" brings Bangladeshi slice of life to the scree

Tannishtha Chatterjee and Sarah Gavron are interviewed by SAJA's Aseem Chhabra after the screening.

Monica Ali's novel, "Brick Lane," the story of a Bangladeshi family in London's East End, has been made into a movie and it exposes audiences to an immigrant community rarely seen on screen.

The new experience isn't limited to the audience, though - neither director Sarah Gavron or lead actress Tannishtha Chatterjee are Bangladeshi. So it was a learning curve for them, too, they told the audience at a screening for the South Asian Journalists Association convention.

The screening on Thursday night at Columbia University marked the beginning of the 2008 SAJA Convention. The screening, courtesy of Sony Picture Classics, played to a nearly full house, and featured a special Q&A session hosted by Aseem Chhabra with Gavron and Chatterjee.

The movie is adapted from a book of the same name by Monica Ali. It weaves through the life of Nazneen, as she grows up, marries at 17, moves to London and raises a family.

 
This is British director Gavron’s first feature-length film, and she said she picked Brick Lane because of its wide appeal across cultures.

“At its heart, it’s a human story,” Gavron said.

CONV: WSJ's Robert Thomson talks about importance of global news

[Watch several short videos of Thomson's speech here]

Coverage of global news will become one of the top three priorities at The Wall Street Journal, in line with its top editor's belief that international coverage is essential to the survival of American media.

Robert Thomson, editor-in-chief of Dow Jones & Co., a subsidiary of News Corp., and managing editor of the Journal, gave the keynote address at the South Asian Journalists Association's annual convention in New York City. In his speech Friday morning, he outlined the media conglomerate's plans to boost its coverage in South Asia, including expansion of its bureau in India.

This, and the plans announced Thursday of key management changes including the appointment of Nik Deogun as the paper's international editor and a deputy managing editor, continues the change in focus and direction for the paper.

"We may be in the midst of a credit crisis... but the two defining trends of our age [are] digitization and globalization," Thomson said.

Already, the Journal has added four pages for international news at $6 million a year, to ramp up its coverage and make it competitive to the New York Times and the Financial Times.

Dow Jones also plans to explore the potential of software technology that would allow it to be part of India's mobile frenzy.

"South Asia is the Fleet Street of the future," Thomson said.

CONV: Get all your coverage at SAJAforum.org/convention

SAJA is delighted to once again have a team of student bloggers who will be covering the SAJA Convention via text, photos and video. This is a great chance for everyone to learn about what happens at the convention right here via SAJAforum.org/convention and for some students to get some experience and coaching from veteran journalists. This year's editor of the student blog project is Prabha Natarajan of Dow Jones (thanks for volunteering, Prabha!). Now, over to Prabha:

We have picked a talented group of student bloggers to keep you posted on what our terrific line-up of speakers have to say on a diverse range of topics from documentary film-making to being the editor of The Wall Street Journal. For your minute-by-minute feed on what you are missing, go to www.sajaforum.org/convention. We, also, will explore the issue of diversity in the newsroom through a series that asks journalists, editors, recruiters, and academics: "Are we there yet?"

The bloggers for the 2008 SAJA Convention:

• Bibek Bhandari, a rising senior at Texas Christian University who writes for the TCU Daily Skiff and Nepali Aawaz, a bilingual publication in New York City.
• Sneha Pradhan, a recent graduate of Wartburg College (in Waverly, Iowa), who has interned as a videographer at The Waterloo Courier and a reporter at The Waverly Newspapers, and also worked at Channel Nepal Television in Kathmandu.
• Ankita Rao, a rising senior at the University of Florida who has freelanced for several Florida publications and is interning this summer at "Yoga + Joyful Living" magazine
• Kashish Shrestha, a freelance photographer from Nepal who lives in New York, will take photos for SAJAforum under Preston Merchant's direction.

Be sure to send Prabha and her team feedback - nnprabha[at]gmail or via the comments section.

CONV: Snippet from "Brick Lane" Q&A

At the 2008 SAJA Convention, Tannishtha Chatterjee, talks about how she was cast in "Brick Lane" (the Sony Pictures Classics film of the Monica Ali novel) She and Sarah Gavron, the director, were interviewed by SAJA's Aseem Chhabra. Thursday, June 19, 2008 - 8:48 p.m. The movie opens Friday, June 20, in the U.S.

See a detailed report on the screening and Q&A.

MOVES: Robert Thomson's big WSJ changes include Nik Deogun, Reg Chua others

Robert Thomson, the new managing editor of The Wall Street Journal announced a much-anticipated shakeup in the editors ranks. From the memo below:

At the heart of our new structure will be a National, International and Enterprise Team, a triumvirate which will report directly to me and to whom the bureau chiefs will report. Effective July 7, Matt Murray will become National Editor, overseeing American general and corporate news, and Nikhil Deogun will become International Editor and directly oversee our global network of bureaus and correspondents. Mike Williams will preside over a broadened Page One, being responsible for investigative reporting, as well A-heds and leders. The troika, who will become Deputy Managing Editors, will sit close together in what could prosaically be called a “news hub”, thus streamlining commissioning and editing decisions, and giving them a central role in the production and presentation of copy for the paper and the website.

See full press release below [Thomson will be the opening keynote speaker at the SAJA Convention & Job Fair tomorrow morning.]

This means that SAJAer India-born Nik Deogun (seen here in a SAJA panel photo by Preston Merchant), who was overseeing the "Money & Investing" section, becomes foreign editor, joining three other South Asian foreign editors of legendary publications:

• Nisid Hajari, foreign editor of Newsweek
• Aparisim "Bobby" Ghosh, world editor of Time
• Stephanie Mehta, global editor of Fortune

Asked about his new role, Deogun told SAJAforum: "I'm delighted about my new position and look forward to expanding the Journal's profile outside of the US and providing quality journalism of the highest integrity to our loyal readership." Deogun becomes the second India-born journalist to become deputy managing editor at the Journal. The first was Raju Narisetti, who left the paper two years ago to launch Mint a New Delhi biz daily.

This move is just the latest among a series of high-profile new appointments of South Asians at major U.S. publications in 2008:

• Davan Maharaj named managing editor of the Los Angeles Times 
• Vindu Goel named deputy technology editor of The New York Times
• Stephanie Mehta named global editor of Fortune
• Jyoti Thottam named South Asia bureau chief of Time
• Geeta Anand moves to Mumbai bureau of WSJ

Also spotted in Thomson's memo:

Reg Chua becomes Senior Assistant Managing Editor, and will oversee the Design Team – a new Director of Design will be appointed in coming days - and the development of data resources.

Chua is a long-time friend of SAJA and a former editor of the Asian Wall Street Journal before moving back to NYC a couple of years ago. Asked about his new role, Chua told SAJAforum: "I'm very excited about taking on these added responsibilities, and especially in helping build up the Journal's
capabilities in using and presenting data."

The full Thomson memo is below. Post your comments below.

CONV: Q&A with Martin Bashir of "Nightline"

SAJA Convention attendees packed Columbia's Roone Arledge Cinema on a Saturday morning to hear famed documentary maker and current co-host of ABC's Nightline, Martin Bashir speak about the challenges and advantages of being an outsider looking into the lives of very public personas.

photos by Preston Merchant

Bashir spoke at length about his "outsider" upbringing in an uneducated, lower class immigrant family. Bashir's parents, both from Pakistan, came to Great Britain in 1951. While describing his professional life, he urged listeners to embrace their "otherness" and use it to enhance truth-telling.   

"Cultural identity is significant in the way we practice our impartiality," he said. "Insiders come with assumptions and business as usual while outsiders have a clarity of vision and innovation."   

Bashir made a name for himself when he was the only reporter to ever interview the late Princess Diana of Wales. He stirred up more controversy when Victor Conte to admit to doping up athletes. He may be best known, however, for his documentary on Michael Jackson, in which Jackson's bizarre behavior and affection for children opened a slew of investigations.    

He did acknowledge, however, that his prestige may not have yet crossed the English Channel yet, referring to himself as "low on the pecking order" at ABC, where he still doesn't have access to the biggest and best assignments yet.

"I can't do the fake American thing," he laughed. "I can't do the smiles."

SAJAforum's Sadia Latifi got to sit down with Bashir before his keynote address.

You've been able to get the most intimate details out of the most public of personas. What's your process in getting people to trust you?

I have a psychiatrist friend who has a theory about me. He said that he thinks that I have two things: first of all, he thinks that I'm not judgmental so that when I am talking to somebody I tend not to approach them with the preconception of baggage. And, I have an unquenchable curiosity. If you are genuinely interested and not prejudgmental, for many people it comes as an enormous relief because they're so used to being perceived and being understood in a particular way. One of the things that I think probably impressed [Michael] Jackson was the fact that I taught myself to play bass from his Thriller album - I learned the bass line of "Billie Jean" in order to learn how to play the bass. I knew almost all the lyrics of all his songs because I love them, and I think it was probably unusual for him to meet someone who is both a so-called journalist and also a huge fan of his.

I didn’t have the cultural background that many people from educated families come with and I think that does have an effect.

You spend a lot of time with the personalities you document. What are your ethical boundaries as an investigative reporter? Are you friends with the people you interview?

You Can't Be. This is why there’s a problem. What happens is you engage and your sole concern is to tell the truth, and the truth isn’t liked when it comes out. In terms of the way we handle some of these people, I think it would be harsher in Britain. There are a number of interviews that I have seen here which would be slammed in Britain as being inadequate or lacking discipline or a level of interrogation. 

PHOTOGRAPHY: Praise for Preston Merchant's Diaspora Pix

Writer and SAJAer Amitava Kumar blogs about someone whose photos you have been seeing on SAJAforum and elsewhere for some time now: Preston Merchant.

With a name like Preston Merchant, and with the sort of work he does, documenting the farflung Indian diaspora, you’d have expected him to be a good Parsi boy. No, he says, he isn’t. (He’s good, but he isn’t Parsi.) In which case, his interest and diligence is all the more remarkable.
<snip>
What is it that unites these photographs? For the most part, you’d think it is the color of the skin of the folks portrayed in them. But that’s not all. It is more the colors that Preston finds to put into his frames that tell a unique story of the movement of peoples.

Preston's working on a book about the diaspora and you can see highlights of his photos from several countries - he calls it "India World" - here. His full archive is at archive.prestonmerchant.com and his 200+ photos from the 2007 SAJA Convention are here.

Take a look at his work and post your comments below. [Photo below of Preston at work by Manish Vij]

CONV: Q&A with PBS's Fred de Sam Lazaro

Fred de Sam Lazaro makes it a point to report from regions far removed from any top 10 tourist hotspots lists. Earning frequent flier miles for destinations including Rwanda, Sudan, Sierra Leone and Pakistan, the award-winning documentary filmmaker and 22-year correspondent for PBS’s “The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer” recently started the Under-Told Story project at St. John's University in Minnesota, to hone a future generation of journalists in that direction.

SAJAforum’s Sonu Munshi chatted with Lazaro as he devoured a dosa after his salon on Day 3 of the SAJA convention. They discussed how to make foreign reporting relevant to Americans, the supposed leftist bias of PBS, and Ken Burns' controversial decision to change his upcoming documentary after pressure from Latinos.

photo by Preston Merchant

What drives you to cover these regions? Why Sudan, not London?

The prevailing sense in the media is that Americans don’t care about what’s happening in these regions. I try to go to places I consider inhospitable to journalists, very beaten down and probably considered irrelevant and I try to make these stories seem relevant. You also need to have an organization to support you, which PBS does.

CONV: Speaker Manish Vij of Ultrabrown.com Takes Some Pix

ARUN VENUGOPAL HOLDS COURT OUTSIDE THE TRINI-PAK HALAL CART. Photo: Manish Vij

Manish Vij of ultrabrown was a speaker at the bloggers panel at the SAJA Convention this year. He took some fun photos of some of the bloggers and others (including Arun Venugopal, this blog's editor, seen on the left here) at the convention. Take a look here. And see Preston Merchant's 200+ photos here.

EARLIER ON SAJAforum.org: BLOGS: Favorite Desi Blogs

CONV: Breaking into Journalism

There's no one path to make it big in journalism, but one can learn from others' experiences. And stick to some basic rules while scooping your way to becoming the next network anchor or award-winning journalist. That was the message a number of students and entry-level aspirants got from three professional reporters at the SAJA convention: Juliet Chung at Newsday, Shazia Khan of NY1 and Anusha Shrivastava, who works for Dow Jones Newswires. Here are some "pearls of wisdom," as one attendee sought, that will get you ahead in the newsroom and away from any reject pile.

Getting and staying inside a Newsroom

• If you're from outside the United States and want to break into the industry here, start building a portfolio of clips (even if it's a free paper) or tapes from within the U.S. Or think about going back to school and working for the college newspaper or TV station.
• Try a variety of internships to figure out what newsrooms you like. Then focus on landing a job in the one you liked best.
• Be specific when pitching a story to an editor. Do some background research, look up potential sources, check for stories already done on the subject and find the holes that need to be filled.
• Anticipate an editor's questions so you're not stumped. Some prefer e-mail, some like the spiel in person. Figure out what yours is like and act accordingly. Before heading to his or her office, bounce the idea off some of your newsroom colleagues. If you get glazed looks and "uhmmms," it's probably a wise idea to rethink the pitch.

CONV: Q&A with the Wall Street Journal's Geeta Anand

From being criticized in a Wall Street Journal editorial as a student activist in the 1980s’ divestment movement for South Africa to, years later, sharing a Pulitzer Prize for explanatory journalism for the Journal in 2003, Geeta Anand has had a long and rich history with the daily (photo by Preston Merchant).

In 2006, the New York-based health and science reporter turned author with her book, “The Cure: How a Father Raised $100 Million--And Bucked the Medical Establishment--In a Quest to Save His Children.” Now, with Rupert Murdoch’s $5 billion buyout bid looming large within the newsroom, SAJAforum’s Sonu Munshi caught up with Anand at the convention about the mood among staffers, what direction the paper might take and, on a lighter note, her connection to Harrison Ford.      

What's the general mood in the newsroom?

I think people have various points of view. But most wish we weren’t being sold and that we didn’t have to operate under (Rupert) Murdoch. We have all expressed our opinion to the Bancroft family for the sale not to happen, but we realize it’s out of our hands. So people are trying to focus on their work and see where the chips fall.

What’s the biggest fear?

That the independence of the newsroom will be compromised in subtle ways. It’s not like someone will say something directly. It’s editors perceiving that the boss wants a certain kind of coverage.

TV NEWS: Three SAJAers in TV Land

THREE SAJAers IN TV LAND: (July 14 at the 2007 SAJA Convention) From left, Fred de Sam Lazaro, correspondent, PBS Lehrer NewsHour; Aditi Roy, anchor/reporter, WCAU, Philadelphia's NBC station; Hari Sreenivasan, correspondent, CBS News Dallas bureau. Three journalists continuing to make their mark in different parts of the American TV news business. Twenty-five years ago, there were no South Asians in equivalent positions. Nowadays, these three just happen to be among some of the more successful desi journalists in front of - and behind - the camera. The last time these three happened to be together was also a moment captured by a camera (except back then it was on film), in Seattle in July 8, 1999. To see how they have changed in these eight years, see below.

CONV: Nick Lemann and Steve Shepard talk news biz

Stephen B. Shepard, Dean of the City University of New York's Graduate School of Journalism (and former editor of Business Week) and Nicholas Lemann, Dean of Columbia University's School of Journalism (and New Yorker writer) were the opening-night convention act. They spoke to SAJAers and convention attendees about shaping a new generation of versatile journalists (photo by Preston Merchant). Some highlights follow...

On Job Stability and Adopting New Media:

Lemann: "Be prepared to be very nimble on your feet as your career changes, and learn to master journalism skills. In addition to traditional journalism skills, there's been a push for web skills. New organizations are always looking for creative ways and people, and we are trying to fill that void. "

Shepard: "Learn all the tools of reporting, writing, critical thinking as well as new forms of story-telling. If people have these skills they have a leg up."

On Objective & Advocacy Journalism:

Shepard: "There are journalists that are not free of bias and then there's journalism that's not free of bias. What I don't like is the mix mashing of these two things."

Lemann: "People want information. A journalist's role is to provide that information, and there's always a market for informational journalism than for opinions."

CONV: In the newsroom, does it pay to be desi?

How do newspapers and other media outlets take advantage of their South Asian reporters' ethnicity? Between super workshops and grabbing a bite to eat, we put the question to SAJA members at the convention. For some, it's a matter of acting as the resident Wikipedia.

“At the daily I worked for earlier, I would often get asked about the significance of Diwali. And the most common word they’d check the pronunciation for is Punjab,” said