SAJAforum

MEDIA: Mint on Indian Editors Taking Bigger Roles in US, UK media

Just over the last year, we have seen significant shifts in leadership positions of some of America's biggest media outlets. To name a few, Davan Maharaj was promoted to the managing editor of the LA Times; Stephanie Mehta became global editor of Fortune; Bobby Ghosh became the world editor of Time magazine; Vindu Goel became deputy tech editor of the New York Times; Jyoti Thottam became South Asia bureau chief of Time magazine; and most recently Nik Deogun was named the international editor of the Wall Street Journal.

See SAJAForum's complete coverage of the major moves of South Asian journalists to key positions.

In yesterday's Mint, a sister publication of the Wall Street Journal in India, Sruthijith K. K. writes that publications in the United States and United Kingdom are increasingly appointing Indian journalists to top slots, as they see more and more content in India. 

For large and influential Western publications, which have sometimes been charged with reducing India into clichés and generalizations, the country seems to have become more of a priority in their international coverage.

A steadily rising number of foreign correspondents are landing in India every year, even as their publications, limited by tighter budgets, are cutting staff and closing bureaus in erstwhile hot spots of international interest.

Coincidentally, at four important American publications, the foreign editor is now a journalist of Indian origin.

Read the full story here.

What are your thoughts on the increasing leadership roles of South Asians in US media? Post them below.

AWARDS: Arun Venugopal wins MHA prize for radio reporting

Arun Venugopal, SAJAforum's fearless leader, won a major award yesterday. In typical Arun fashion, he whispered not a word about it to us, hoping that the award, his trip to D.C. to collect it, etc, wouldn't be noticed. Well, too bad, Arun, because this is a prize worth noting (the photo is from last year's SAJA Convention; PHOTO: Manish Vij).

Mental Health America, "the country's leading nonprofit dedicated to helping ALL people live mentally healthier lives," presented its 2008 media awards on Saturday, June 7 at a luncheon as part of its Mental Health Promotion and Prevention Summit in Washington, D.C. Among the winners:

Local Radio
WNYC (New York, NY), "Cities Embrace New Ways to Handle Confrontations Between Cops and the Mentally Ill," by Arun Venugopal

Listen to Arun's report - all nine minutes - here (transcript link below):

MOVES: Jyoti Thottam named Time's South Asia bureau chief

UPDATE: Listen to a recording of a webcast with Jyoti Thottam a week before her big move. She discussed her appointment; the current state of newsweeklies; some of what she'd like to cover; and her career.

Jyoti Thottam, former SAJA president and Time magazine senior editor, has been named the magazine's South Asia bureau chief. From a memo by Rick Stengel, managing editor, and Michael Elliott, editor of Time International (see below for the full memo):

Next month, Jyoti Thottam will leave New York and relocate to New Delhi as our bureau chief there. Jyoti was born in India, but raised mostly in suburban Houston. She now lives with her husband and daughter in Brooklyn. She came to TIME from On magazine/Time Digital, and before that was a newspaper reporter in Queens and in Jacksonville, Florida. (She is the co-author of a play, Interrogations, based partly on her crime reporting in Queens.) Jyoti got her start as an intern at the Wall Street Journal, and her writing has also appeared in the Believer and the Village Voice. She graduated from Yale, where she studied religion and economics, and she also has a master's degree from Columbia, where she studied international affairs and learned Hindi. All those skills were indispensable during the year she spent as a freelancer traveling around India after grad school, and she's looking forward to using them again covering South Asia for TIME.

Asked why this move now, Thottam told SAJAforum: “South Asia is one of the most exciting places in the world right now, and after 10 years in New York City, I was ready to try something new. I can’t imagine a better place to be a journalist, and I’m looking forward to covering the region's stories, big and small.”

She and her family leave in mid-June. Press queries can be sent via saja[at]columbia.edu (subject="for Jyoti Thottam") - click on the photo for a high-rez version.

While at Time, her most high-profile story was her March 1, 2004, cover story on outsourcing, "Is Your Job Going Abroad." She appeared on the PBS show "Charlie Rose" that week to discuss the issue, along with Columbia University professor Jagdish Bhagwati.

Time HQ has been a very hospitable home for South Asians. Here are just some of the folks there now:

• Romesh Ratnesar, is one of two deputy managing editors, under Rick Stengel
• Bobby Ghosh, world (foreign) editor
• Ratu Kamlani, chief of reporters

Thottam replaces Simon Robinson, who was the South Asia bureau chief since 2006. He now moves to the  London office to be a senior editor there. The memo below also notes that Zoher Abdoolcarim is the new Asia editor of Time International.

AWARDS: Adrees Latif collects a Pulitzer

That's a photo of Pakistan-born Adrees Latif at the Pulitzer Prize ceremony this afternoon, with his wife, a fellow photojournalist based in Bangkok. Am posting this with an apology in advance for the cellphone photo. Considering their high standards, it's probably the worst photo they've been associated with.

In today's New York Times, Reuters ran a full page ad on the back of the business section congratulating Latif on the award. See PDF version here.

See SAJAforum's writeup on his award - and see the winning photograph

UPDATED: Better, official Reuters photos below.

Post your comments.

EVEREST: First Nepali woman journalist to scale Mt. Everest

A report from NepalNews.com. Anyone know how ow many journalists of either gender or any nationality, have climbed Mt. Everest? Post your answers in the comments section below.

    Shailee Basnet, a correspondent of Himal Khabar Patrika, a publication of Himalmedia, reached the top of the world's highest mountain, Mount Everest (8848 m), at 8 am on Saturday, 24 May.

    She is the only journalist in the 10-member All Nepali Women's Mt. Everest Team that set out for the expedition early this month after training intensively under the supervision of experts for four months.

    Kanak Dixit, publisher of Himal Khabar Patrika, Kundan Aryal, editor of Himal Khabar Patrika and Ashutosh Tiwari, CEO of Himalmedia have all congratulated her on her success.

    Basnet is the first Nepali female journalist to reach the top of Everest. Nine of the 10 members have reached the top of Everest as of May 24. nepalnews.com May 24 08

Related News
              -  Five members of 1st Inclusive Women Expedition scale Mt Everest

Post your comments below. Thanks to Dr. Tara Niraula of the US-Nepal Friendship Society for the alert.

Posted by Sree Sreenivasan at 09:02 AM in Journalists In The News, Nepal | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

A little over a year ago, we wrote about Davan Maharaj's promotion to business editor of the Los Angeles Times. Now, he's moved a step higher to managing editor, making him the third-ranking editor at the fourth-largest newspaper in the country (after USA Today, Wall Street Journal and New York Times). From the announcement available below:

As Managing Editor, Davan Maharaj assumes oversight of Foreign, National, Metro, Business, Science and Sports, and will work alongside Stanton and Arthur in directing coverage, deploying journalists and resources and overseeing personnel decisions. The Times Business Editor since February 2007, Maharaj is charged with further integrating the print and Web story pipelines.

Asked for a comment by SAJAforum, he wrote in an e-mail: "I'm humbled to part of the leadership of this great institution. The Los Angeles Times is beloved by the 800,000 people who take it into their homes everyday and we have to keep being relevant to these readers."

From an LAT story about his promotion:

Maharaj, 45, has worked as a reporter for The Times in Orange County, Los Angeles and East Africa. His six-part series "Living on Pennies," in collaboration with Times photographer Francine Orr, won the 2005 Ernie Pyle Award for Human Interest Writing and inspired readers to donate tens of thousands of dollars to aid agencies working in Africa.

Read that series, "Living on Pennies," here. Full announcement about the changes below.

Maharaj joins a handful of South Asians at the top of major U.S. news outlets:

• Peter Bhatia, executive editor, The Oregonian (see news of his being named one of E&P's editors of the year)
• Rena Golden is editor of CNN.com (former head of CNN International)
• Bobby Ghosh is world (foreign) editor of Time
• Nisid Hajari is foreign editor of Newsweek
• Stephanie Mehta is foreign editor of Fortune

Post your comments below.

Om Malik is one of the world's most influential bloggers. As founder of GigaOm.com, a site that's a must-read for Silicon Valley folks, what he and his team say can make or break a company. Millions of dollars in investments are placed, in part, on what Malik says.

The tech-star-studded e-mail I received below, about Structure '08, a new GigaOm conference (it's another major conversation that's part of the GigaOm network, a list that includes NewTeeVee Live, "Television Reinvented"), reminded me that we haven't written about Malik here on SAJAforum.

We haven't been writing about Malik - a co-founder of SAJA with me, M.K. Srinivasan, Dilip Massand, but the New York Times has. Twice just this year.

Om Malik’s blog, GigaOm, regularly breaks news about the technology industry. Last week, the journalist turned blogger broke a big story about himself. Mr. Malik, 41, blogged that he had suffered a heart attack on Dec. 28.

“I was able to walk into the hospital for treatment that night and have been recovering here ever since,” Mr. Malik wrote. “With the support of my family and my team, I am on the road to a full recovery. I am going to be O.K.”

His heart attack — and his blogging about it — raises the issue of what happens when a blogger becomes a name brand.

“The trouble with a personal brand is, you’re yoked to a machine,” said Paul Kedrosky, a friend of Mr. Malik’s who runs the Infectious Greed blog. “You feel huge pressure to not just do a lot, but to do a lot with your name on it. You have pressure to not just be the C.E.O., but at the same time to write, and to do it all on a shoestring. Put it all together, and it’s a recipe for stress through the roof.”

Vindu Goel, already one of the most senior South Asian business journalists working in America, is expanding his reach. Until recently, he was a columnist and blogger (Vindu's View from the Valley) for the San Jose Mercury News, where he had been business editor, assistant business editor and a member of the editorial board. In March 2008, the New York Times announced he was coming on board as deputy technology editor. He joins the paper on Monday, April 21, 2008. From the memo, reproduced below:

In this newly created position, Vindu will work with tech editor Damon Darlin and deputy tech editor David Gallagher, as well as Kevin McKenna, deputy business editor for online news, to expand our coverage of technology, particularly on the Web. It's a job that Vindu is particularly well suited to do, given his range of experience in overseeing business and tech coverage, and his passion and vision for Web journalism.

Before heading east, Goel answered three quick questions from SAJAforum:

• Can you tell us what you expect to be doing at the Times?
• How do you feel about leaving the exciting world of Silicon Valley?
• Can you give our readers some thoughts on why you've taken the editing track for so much of your career? Many young journalists, as you know, pursue reporting over the editing jobs.

See his answers below. And post your comments, please.

For more on Goel, see his answers to questions posed at HighSchoolJournalism.org's "Ask A Pro"
circa 2001. A highlight: "I think in my heart that I always knew I would be in news. I published my first newspaper in the fourth grade with a friend of mine, and I've been drawn to newspapers ever since."

UPDATE: Listen to a recording of the "Virtual Memorial Service" for Gopal Raju, featuring some of his friends and admirers, April 14, 2008:

Veteran journalist Gopal Raju, founder of India Abroad; IANS news service and the Indian American Center for Political Awareness - and the editor and publisher of three other newspapers - died in New York earlier today. We will gather updates and tributes and funeral information here.

UPDATE FROM VEENA MERCHANT, long-time colleague and friend:

There has been an outpouring of grief and heartfelt words of sympathy at the passing away of Gopal Raju. We are deeply touched by these sentiments and are overwhelmed by the kind of feelings that he generated, not just in the community but all those who came into contact with him.  A lot of people wanted to send flowers for his funeral. In keeping with Mr. Raju's wishes of keeping his funeral purely private and minimalistic, we request mourners to, instead, send a contribution in the name of "Indian American Foundation" - the money will be utilized to fund the causes that Mr Raju held dear.

Indian American Foundation
43 W. 24th St Suite 8b
New York, NY 10010

We deeply appreciate your support and sympathy at his hour.

Right: Gopal Raju at a ceremony in New Delhi in January 2007, where he received one of India's biggest awards from President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam. PHOTO: Jay Mandal/On Assignment

Post your comments and thoughts, please - or e-mail saja[at]columbia.edu

From Indo-Asian News Service, the news service Raju himself created.

New York, April 10 (IANS) - Gopal Raju, who was a bridge between India and the United States in the fields of media, politics and philanthropy for over half-a-century, died here early Thursday after a brief illness. He was 80.

Raju's death was announced by his long-time colleague and friend Veena Merchant. He died after complications from a weeklong bout of jaundice.

An institution builder, he founded the India Abroad newspaper, the Indo-Asian News Service (IANS), the Indian American Foundation (IAF) and the Indian American Center for Political Action (IACPA). At the time of his death, he was the publisher of the weekly newspapers News India-Times, Desi Talk and Gujarat Times.

A pioneering advocate of the two-million Indian diaspora in the US, becoming involved first in the life of their adopted country, and then being a link to their homeland, he made India Abroad his passion for serving as an information bridge between the community and their native country.

Later, he founded the IACPA in 1993, which extended this community involvement to US politics from Washington to state and local levels.

Under the Center's tutelage he placed about 200 Indian American interns with Congressional and Senate lawmakers in Washington, D.C.

CPJ reports that Majeed Babar, the executive editor of Weekly Asia Tribune has received a death threat. From the press release below:

The editor of a New York-based weekly told CPJ he received a death threat. Majeed Babar, executive editor of the Weekly Asia Tribune, said a man called him on March 29 and told him, “We will cut you to pieces” in Urdu.

Babar said the threat was linked to opinion columns and paid advertisements promoting a beauty pageant in his print and online newspaper, the Weekly Asia Tribune. The Tribune is a multilingual publication aimed at New York’s large South Asian community.
The columns are by a California-based contributor named Imam Shumshad Nasir, who is a leader of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, which was expelled from Pakistan in the 1970s because they were considered “non-Muslims” by the government.

The call was part of a larger pattern of intimidating incidents directed against Babar, he said.

“We call upon the New York authorities to fully investigate reports of threats,” said Joel Simon, CPJ’s executive director. “The authorities must send a clear signal to those who seek to intimidate or censor journalists.”

Full press release below. Post your comments, please.

This year's Pulitzer Prizes have just been announced. The one South Asia connection I see is that the Breaking News Photography prize has gone to Pakistan-born and Bangkok-based photojournalist Adrees Latif of Reuters.

He won for his photo of a Japanese videographer being attacked in Myanmar (see below).

From the citation:

For a distinguished example of breaking news photography in black and white or color, which may consist of a photograph or photographs, a sequence or an album, in print or online or both, Ten thousand dollars ($10,000).
Awarded to Adrees Latif of Reuters for his dramatic photograph of a Japanese videographer, sprawled on the pavement, fatally wounded during a street demonstration in Myanmar.

Also nominated as finalists in this category were: Mahmud Hams of Agence France-Presse for his picture of a missile, caught in mid-air, as it falls on a target in the Gaza Strip while young Palestinians scramble for safety, and the Los Angeles Times Staff for its powerful and often unpredictable photos that captured wildfires devastating California.

From his biography:

Born in Lahore, Pakistan on July 21, 1973, Adrees Latif lived in Saudi Arabia before immigrating with his family to Texas in 1980. Latif worked as a staff photographer for The Houston Post from 1993 to 1996 before joining Reuters. Latif graduated from the University of Houston in 1999 with a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism. Latif has worked for Reuters in Houston, Los Angeles before moving to Bangkok in 2003 where he covers news across Asia.

See excellent coverage of Latif, including lots of photos by him, at Pakistaniat.

See the full list of winners and finalist in this PDF or on Pulitzer.org.

Manish Vij of Ultrabrown reports:

Fiction winner "Oscar Wao" by Junot Diaz has several desi refs.
http://www.ultrabrown.com/posts/revenge-of-the-dominican-nerds

See SAJA's collection of South Asia and the Pulitzer Prize over the years:
http://www.saja.org/resources/pulitzers.html

And SAJAforum's coverage of the 2007 awards ceremony.

Post your comments below.

[June 27, 2008 UPDATE: Listen to a webcast with Dileepan Sivapathasundaram]

[April 7, 2008 UPDATE: AFP reports Bearak has been released]

Barry Bearak, one of the most respected American journalists working today, has been caught up in the ugly situation in Zimbabwe. He has just spent his second night in a cell in Harare. He was there covering the elections that appear to have thrown out the corrupt government of Robert Mugabe, but the regime is doing all they can to delay the official results. From NYT, Saturday morning NY time:

A journalist for The New York Times  detained by the police in Zimbabwe spent a second night in a jail cell on Friday, after government authorities overruled the attorney general’s decision to set him free.

The journalist, Barry Bearak, and a British citizen who was also arrested, were swept up at a small hotel in the suburbs of the capital, Harare, on Thursday afternoon. The action appeared to be part of a crackdown by government forces after an election that seemed to be turning against President Robert Mugabe and his 28-year grip on the country.

Offices of the main opposition party were also raided, while an American democracy advocate helping local groups monitor the elections was arrested at the airport.

That American democracy advocate has been released. Dileepan Sivapathasundaram is a Sri Lankan-American senior program officer at the National Democratic Institute ("a non-partisan, non-profit, non-governmental organization that aims to support democratic values and practices in more than 60 countries"). He is now in with American officials and we will provide updates as we get them (more on him from a 2004 press release below).

The Times is doing all it can to help secure Bearak's release and several journalism organizations are monitoring the situation (see resources below).

Bearak and his wife, Celia Dugger, are co-bureau chiefs in Johannesburg, South Africa. They also have strong connections to South Asia as they were co-bureau chiefs in New Delhi from 1998 to 2002, just as America's interest in the subcontinent was increasing. The two-person team helped take the NYT's coverage of India and the region to a whole new level. Bearak won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting for his series of reports on daily life in war-torn Afghanistan (see that series and other work by him on his Times Topics page). He won a 2001 SAJA Journalism Award for "Back to Life in India, Without Reincarnation," an account of how the Association of Dead People fights for the rights of Indian citizens falsely declared dead.

If we learn of anything others can do to help him get released, we will let you know here.

[On a personal note, I want to add that I have had the privilege of working directly with Barry when he joined the Columbia Journalism School faculty for a couple of years after his Delhi posting. I had first met him in 1998 as he was preparing to head to India and was doing his prep work - spending weeks and months learning about the region, the people and the issues  before he headed out. He threw himself into teaching the same way: preparing in a way I had never seen a new prof do before. He sat in on other classes, watched his colleagues and never stopped taking notes. By the end of his first semester he'd emerged as one of our best and most popular teachers, so it was tough to learn that he and Celia were heading back into the field, for this Johannesburg job. We look forward to his safe release from jail, and after his posting, his eventual return to the classroom.]

Resources and more info:

• NYT executive editor Bill Keller's memo on Bearak's arrest
• Keller on Bearak, day two.
• CPJ on the history of press repression in Zimbabwe

Please post your comments below.

Anchor and reporter Daljit Dhaliwal has a PBS special airing on April 9 online and on TV. From the press release below:

International broadcast journalist Daljit Dhaliwal has been named anchor of GLOBAL WATCH, a half-hour special program currently in production for PBS by KCET/Los Angeles. The announcement was made today by Al Jerome, KCET president and CEO. GLOBAL WATCH is a television and digital media initiative, which explores issues of interest around the world with particular attention to how the United States is perceived abroad. It will air nationally on PBS on Wednesday, April 9 at 10:30 p.m. (Please check local listings.) <snip>

“Daljit has covered international news stories throughout her career as a news anchor, including wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, conflicts in the Balkans and the ongoing turmoil in the Middle East,” said Jerome. “She is highly respected and the perfect choice to anchor such an ambitious project.”

“It is extremely gratifying to have the opportunity to anchor and report for GLOBAL WATCH,” said Dhaliwal. “There is a tremendous need for all of us to understand the critical role America plays in the world. Everything from politics to popular culture has an impact on how the rest of the world views the United States.”

Asked to comment, Dhaliwal told SAJAforum:

In this day and age it's impossible to overstate America's global influence. Yet one of the things that's often missing from the media coverage is an examination of how the rest of the world sees us. Global Watch will seek to address those perceptions in a nuanced way.

Dhaliwal, who many of you met at the 2006 SAJA Convention, is really busy journalist. Her full-time gig is anchor of "Foreign Exchange" on PBS. She took overfrom Fareed Zakaria a couple of months ago (Zakaria has joined CNN where he will be hosting his own show soon). She's also a frequent anchor at ABC News Now - ABC's digital platform.

See the full press release below, and post your comments.

These photos are from KCET/PBS and the one above shows NBC correspondent Mark Mullen, doing a live shot with Dhaliwal from Beijing about China's pollution problem.

Below you will find four items about high school journalism in the U.S.

I am always a little jealous when I meet students who have journalism programs in their high schools. I didn't encounter a journalism program till I came to graduate school. The places I did my high school (Fiji) and college (India) didn't have in-house journalism programs when I was there.

1. Take a look at all the resources at ASNE's HighSchoolJournalism.org. Stuff there for all ages.
2. Dow Jones Newspaper Fund has an awards program to recognize great high school journalism teachers.
   

   The annual program selects and honors the nation's top journalism teacher,
   four Distinguished Advisers and several teachers cited as Special
   Recognition award winners. The Teacher of the Year acts as a spokesperson
   for scholastic journalism.

   Details below.
3. The Columbia Scholastic Press Association is having its annual convention, gathering 3,000ish high school journalists from around the country. I have been happy to see a good sprinkling of South Asians among them.
4. Joe Van Harken, a former student of mine, has spent the last eight months working on a new eight-part MTV documentary series called "The Paper." The show centers around an award-winning
   high school newspaper in South Florida. "One of our goals is to show that smart kids can be cool too... another, to spark interest in journalism among teens nationwide."
   The show starts airing April 14, at 10:30 pm after "The Hills". Sneak a peek below.
   
   
   • MTV
   • Music Videos
   • MTV Shows
   • Entertainment News

Post your comments below.

Some SAJAers and good friends of SAJA are in AAJA's new governing board, which was elected today. Congrats - we look forward to continuing to work with AAJA.

From the press release:

Six new AAJA Governing Board members were elected by the Advisory Board during its meeting in San Francisco March 7. Newly-elected were: Abe Kwok, Arizona chapter; Cheryl Tan, New York chapter; Don Chareunsy, San Diego chapter; Matt Dunn, San Francisco Bay Area chapter; Sharon Chan, Seattle chapter; and Ameet Sachdev, Chicago chapter.

The six will serve a two-year term. The Governing Board ensures that the organization fulfills its mission, meets the needs of its constituencies, and operates legally, effectively, and efficiently. The other members of the Governing Board are the elected National Officers: Jeanne Mariani-Belding, president; Janet Cho, Vice President for Print; Jam Sardar, Vice President for Broadcast; Cynthia Wang, Treasurer; and Doris Truong, Secretary.

More information is available on the Board of Directors page.

Three positions for National Officers are up for election at the UNITY Convention in Chicago this July: President, Vice President for Broadcast, and Treasurer. Their new terms begin on January 1, 2009. Nominations are due March 17.

 

Peter Bhatia and his boss, Sandy Rowe, executive editor and editor, respectively, of The Oregonian, have been named "Editors of the Year 2008" by Editor & Publisher, the trade publication for the newspaper industry. In an eight-page spread in the magazine, writerJoe Strupp tells us that the duo are "Partners in Portland: Sandy Rowe hired Peter Bhatia nearly 15 years ago -- and they've been a winning pair ever since." The Oregonian has won five Pulitzers and had nine finalists over that time period. Read the entire piece, as a PDF, here.

Three questions for Peter Bhatia:

SAJAforum: Congrats on the award. Let's start with the standard question asked in these circumstances: How do you feel?
Bhatia: I'm fine ... other than a sore lower back and problems with a tendon in my right shoulder. Seriously, it is nice for Sandy and I to be recognized, but the real work is being done and the credit goes to the superb colleagues we have here. It is an amazingly talented group.

SAJAforum: Newspapers seem to be in real trouble. Are they? And can they ever get their groove back?
Bhatia: I still believe in newspapers. We have to reinvent ourselves for the new information era in which we are living. If we do that -- and do so fast enough -- there is hope for the future. One thing for certain: no one can  distill, explain and context information better than newspaper journalists. That is our future.

SAJAforum: What tips do you have for young journalists who are getting in the business now?

[See SAJAforum coverage, sources and resources about the 2008 elections]

An unusual message landed in my the other day. An endorsement of a presidential candidate from a South Asian publication. "Little India Endorses Barack Obama," said the subject line (see our earlier cover of the mag's list of the top Indian-American bundlers). Here's part of the endorsement (which you can see in full here):

Little India has decided to break from its tradition of staying out of the primary selections by endorsing Sen. Barack Obama for the Democratic Party nomination for president. We take this unusual step as we have come to share his inspiring message and his call for the "fierce urgency of now."

We value the Clintons' long association with the Indian American community and with India, so the decision to endorse her opponent has not been easy. But there is something magical and transcendental in this moment about Sen. Obama both for the country and the Indian American community.

His life story is in so many ways ours. In his political pursuits, he has defied both traditional paths pursued by minority politicians: identity politics built on narrow affiliations, typical of most ethnic leaders, as well as that of right wing politicians (like our own Bobby Jindal in Louisiana) who run from their history and identity. Obama, by contrast, has transcended boundaries. The Obama phenomenon, even if it does not get him the ultimate prize, offers something unique and it is important that we embrace this moment, for, as the Nobel Prize writer Toni Morrison wrote in her endorsement of Obama, "this is one of those singular moments that nations ignore at their peril."

We reject the proposition that Sen. Hillary Clinton's experience trumps the promise that Obama has to offer. As Sen. Obama has retorted: "One of my opponents says a vote for me would be a gamble. But the real gamble would be to do the same old things with the same old people over and over again and hope that the next time the results will somehow be different."

I asked Achal Mehra, the editor the magazine (founded in 1991 and bills itself as the largest Asian circulation publication in the U.S.) five questions about the endorsement, the political race and the magazine business.

My questions:

• Why endorse so early in the process, without waiting for the two-person race?
• What issues should the SA community be the most concerned about going forward?
• What is the history of SA pubs endorsing politicians in the U.S.?
• How's Little India doing? I see you say it's the largest ASIAN publication in the U.S., not just Indian or South Asian. When did that happen? I missed that milestone.
• What advice do you have for SAs thinking of starting their own magazines/newspapers?

See his answers, sent from Little India headquarters in the Empire State Building, and post your comments below.

[ RESOURCE: Benazir Bhutto Assassination ]

Associated Press reporter Zarar Khan was at the rally in Rawalpindi where Benazir Bhutto was killed, and managed to be the first to confirm she had died by rushing to Rawalpindi General Hospital. From a memo to AP journalists, reprinted by Jim Romenesko at Poynter.org:

With no car available, Khan ran until he flagged down a passing motorcyclist who took him the rest of the one-mile journey. Then he talked his way past police at the gate, past a Bhutto guard at the door and finally got inside the annex to the operating theater.

There a party aide confirmed that Bhutto was in serious condition and undergoing surgery. Khan phoned in that news (on a borrowed cell phone, since his had been lost in the bombing chaos) and then, when a doctor emerged and spoke to weeping party leaders, Khan learned from Bhutto's personal secretary that she had died. He got confirmation and time of death from a second party aide, while correspondent Munir Ahmad in the Islamabad bureau got further confirmation from a military source.

That gave Pakistan CoB [chief of bureau] Mat Pennington enough to file the FLASH with which AP broke the tragic news to the world.

The memo concludes by saying that Khan won a weekly prize of $500.

Post your comments below.

From this year's list of winners of the Front Page Awards of the Newswomen's Club of New York:

Exercise/Diet
Pallavi Gogoi, Business Week
"Cloned Beef Burgers: 'Delicious.'"

You can read her story here, along with 660+ comments:

The FDA has said food from cloned animals is safe. Though it won't land in markets yet, cloned meat is being served at one company

See the accompanying slideshow, "Cloned Food Coming to a Store Near You."

Earlier this summer, she won a 2007 New York Press Club Award for her beat reporting on Wal-Mart:

Best Continuing Coverage

Pallavi Gogoi, BusinessWeek.com

“Wal-Mart”

Read Gogoi's bio and see several of her recent stories - including some of those Wal-Mart pieces here.

Post your comments below.

The Dart Center for Journalism & Trauma is one of the most important media institutions today. Its mission:

The Dart Center is a global network of journalists, journalism educators and health professionals dedicated to improving media coverage of trauma, conflict and tragedy. The Center also addresses the consequences of such coverage for those working in journalism.

It gives out the annual Ochberg fellowship:

Reporting responsibly and credibly on violence and traumatic events — on crime, family violence, natural disasters and accidents, war and genocide — is among the greatest challenges facing contemporary journalism. The Dart Center Ochberg Fellowship, now in its ninth year, was established by the Dart Center in order to better prepare journalists for this challenge. The fellowship is named for the Dart Center Executive Committee's Chairman Emeritus, Frank Ochberg, M.D., a psychiatrist and pioneer in the understanding of violence and trauma.

This year's winners include SAJAer Moni Basu of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, who has done at least six tours of duty as a reporter in Iraq. Here's her fellowship bio:

Moni Basu is a national and international reporter for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. She has covered the Iraq war and spent five months embedded with a Georgia Army National Guard brigade. She is now covering soldiers' re-entry into civilian life. She has also reported from Cuba, Chile, Norway, Jordan, Kuwait and India. She covered the devastating 2001 earthquake in Ahmedabad, India, military suicides at Fort Bragg, SARS in Toronto and West Nile virus in Louisiana. In 2005 she was honored as Journalist of the Year by the Atlanta Press Association and has also won awards from the South Asian Journalists Association, Associated Press Managing Editors and the Society of Newspaper Design.

See Moni's farewell post for the AJC's Georgians @ War blog. Congrats to Moni and we wish her the best during her fellowship.

Post your comments below.

 

Here's an unusual journalists-in-the-news item.

From Metro Canada:

Becoming the “first North American-born Zoroastrian priest ever” also didn’t pan out for Panthaky (someone else beat him to the punch) but he did become ordained as a priest at 12. And today, while Panthaky isn’t being interviewed by hordes of journalists, he is often in their company.

In addition to presiding over the occasional Navjote (a Zoroastrian initiation ceremony), the 38-year-old Mississaugan is a reporter, writer and former sports anchor for OMNI News, South Asian edition. His television aspirations also trace back to early childhood, when he used to watch shows like 20/20 while babysitting. Aside from work and priesthood, however, today Panthaky is just a typical 38-year-old, enjoying music or attending a friend’s stag. “In our day-to-day lives, we’re regular people,” he insists. “(My priesthood) is just one of the many aspects that makes up the person that is Khush Panthaky.”

Read the full story here and post your comments below.

 

"Complaint about SAJA email," was the subject line of a message I received last night. It was from SAJAer Jayati Vora, pointing out that we had not sent out information about a major award going to a fellow journalist. "I request that you send out an email about it; better late than never." Our apologies for the delay...

P. Sainath, one of the world's most influential journalists, has won the 2007 Ramon Magsaysay Award in the journalism, literature and creative communications arts. Previous South Asian winners in this category of the Magsaysay Award, routinely referred to as "the Asian Nobel prize," have included such luminaries as filmmaker Satyajit Ray, sitarist Ravi Shankar, editor Arun Shourie, cartoonist R.K. Laxman, journalist Bharat Dutta Koirala, among others (including my new colleague at Columbia J-school, Sheila Coronel).

Sainath, who serves as the rural affairs editor of The Hindu newspaper, was recognized  for "his passionate commitment as a journalist to restore the rural poor to India's consciousness, moving the nation forward." [Economist Amartya Sen has called him "one of the world's great experts on famine and poverty."]

He has spoken more often at SAJA-NY events than almost any other international journalist over the last 13 years. Pretty amazing, considering he lives in India (and famously spends almost 300 days a year in rural areas). Every one of his events has drawn a full house - and we hope to host him again in NYC.

Articles about Sainath and the award:

• The Hindu: Sainath wins Magsaysay Award
• Zee: P. Sainath: Voice from the Hinterland
• IndiaTogether.org: Archive of Sainath's columns
• Wikipedia: P. Sainath entry

The full award citation is below. More on the awards themselves here. Post your comments - and congratulations - below.

MOVES: Davan Maharaj becomes managing editor of the LA Times

A little over a year ago, we wrote about Davan Maharaj's promotion to business editor of the Los Angeles Times. Now, he's moved a step higher to managing editor, making him the third-ranking editor at the fourth-largest newspaper in the country (after USA Today, Wall Street Journal and New York Times). From the announcement available below:

As Managing Editor, Davan Maharaj assumes oversight of Foreign, National, Metro, Business, Science and Sports, and will work alongside Stanton and Arthur in directing coverage, deploying journalists and resources and overseeing personnel decisions. The Times Business Editor since February 2007, Maharaj is charged with further integrating the print and Web story pipelines.

Asked for a comment by SAJAforum, he wrote in an e-mail: "I'm humbled to part of the leadership of this great institution. The Los Angeles Times is beloved by the 800,000 people who take it into their homes everyday and we have to keep being relevant to these readers."

From an LAT story about his promotion:

Maharaj, 45, has worked as a reporter for The Times in Orange County, Los Angeles and East Africa. His six-part series "Living on Pennies," in collaboration with Times photographer Francine Orr, won the 2005 Ernie Pyle Award for Human Interest Writing and inspired readers to donate tens of thousands of dollars to aid agencies working in Africa.

Read that series, "Living on Pennies," here. Full announcement about the changes below.

Maharaj joins a handful of South Asians at the top of major U.S. news outlets:

• Peter Bhatia, executive editor, The Oregonian (see news of his being named one of E&P's editors of the year)
• Rena Golden is editor of CNN.com (former head of CNN International)
• Bobby Ghosh is world (foreign) editor of Time
• Nisid Hajari is foreign editor of Newsweek
• Stephanie Mehta is foreign editor of Fortune

Post your comments below.

MEMBERS: Om Malik's Adventures

Om Malik is one of the world's most influential bloggers. As founder of GigaOm.com, a site that's a must-read for Silicon Valley folks, what he and his team say can make or break a company. Millions of dollars in investments are placed, in part, on what Malik says.

The tech-star-studded e-mail I received below, about Structure '08, a new GigaOm conference (it's another major conversation that's part of the GigaOm network, a list that includes NewTeeVee Live, "Television Reinvented"), reminded me that we haven't written about Malik here on SAJAforum.

We haven't been writing about Malik - a co-founder of SAJA with me, M.K. Srinivasan, Dilip Massand, but the New York Times has. Twice just this year.

Om Malik’s blog, GigaOm, regularly breaks news about the technology industry. Last week, the journalist turned blogger broke a big story about himself. Mr. Malik, 41, blogged that he had suffered a heart attack on Dec. 28.

“I was able to walk into the hospital for treatment that night and have been recovering here ever since,” Mr. Malik wrote. “With the support of my family and my team, I am on the road to a full recovery. I am going to be O.K.”

His heart attack — and his blogging about it — raises the issue of what happens when a blogger becomes a name brand.

“The trouble with a personal brand is, you’re yoked to a machine,” said Paul Kedrosky, a friend of Mr. Malik’s who runs the Infectious Greed blog. “You feel huge pressure to not just do a lot, but to do a lot with your name on it. You have pressure to not just be the C.E.O., but at the same time to write, and to do it all on a shoestring. Put it all together, and it’s a recipe for stress through the roof.”

THREE QUESTIONS: Vindu Goel becomes NYT's deputy tech editor

Vindu Goel, already one of the most senior South Asian business journalists working in America, is expanding his reach. Until recently, he was a columnist and blogger (Vindu's View from the Valley) for the San Jose Mercury News, where he had been business editor, assistant business editor and a member of the editorial board. In March 2008, the New York Times announced he was coming on board as deputy technology editor. He joins the paper on Monday, April 21, 2008. From the memo, reproduced below:

In this newly created position, Vindu will work with tech editor Damon Darlin and deputy tech editor David Gallagher, as well as Kevin McKenna, deputy business editor for online news, to expand our coverage of technology, particularly on the Web. It's a job that Vindu is particularly well suited to do, given his range of experience in overseeing business and tech coverage, and his passion and vision for Web journalism.

Before heading east, Goel answered three quick questions from SAJAforum:

• Can you tell us what you expect to be doing at the Times?
• How do you feel about leaving the exciting world of Silicon Valley?
• Can you give our readers some thoughts on why you've taken the editing track for so much of your career? Many young journalists, as you know, pursue reporting over the editing jobs.

See his answers below. And post your comments, please.

For more on Goel, see his answers to questions posed at HighSchoolJournalism.org's "Ask A Pro"
circa 2001. A highlight: "I think in my heart that I always knew I would be in news. I published my first newspaper in the fourth grade with a friend of mine, and I've been drawn to newspapers ever since."

OBIT: Gopal Raju, founder of "India Abroad," dies

UPDATE: Listen to a recording of the "Virtual Memorial Service" for Gopal Raju, featuring some of his friends and admirers, April 14, 2008:

Veteran journalist Gopal Raju, founder of India Abroad; IANS news service and the Indian American Center for Political Awareness - and the editor and publisher of three other newspapers - died in New York earlier today. We will gather updates and tributes and funeral information here.

UPDATE FROM VEENA MERCHANT, long-time colleague and friend:

There has been an outpouring of grief and heartfelt words of sympathy at the passing away of Gopal Raju. We are deeply touched by these sentiments and are overwhelmed by the kind of feelings that he generated, not just in the community but all those who came into contact with him.  A lot of people wanted to send flowers for his funeral. In keeping with Mr. Raju's wishes of keeping his funeral purely private and minimalistic, we request mourners to, instead, send a contribution in the name of "Indian American Foundation" - the money will be utilized to fund the causes that Mr Raju held dear.

Indian American Foundation
43 W. 24th St Suite 8b
New York, NY 10010

We deeply appreciate your support and sympathy at his hour.

Right: Gopal Raju at a ceremony in New Delhi in January 2007, where he received one of India's biggest awards from President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam. PHOTO: Jay Mandal/On Assignment

Post your comments and thoughts, please - or e-mail saja[at]columbia.edu

From Indo-Asian News Service, the news service Raju himself created.

New York, April 10 (IANS) - Gopal Raju, who was a bridge between India and the United States in the fields of media, politics and philanthropy for over half-a-century, died here early Thursday after a brief illness. He was 80.

Raju's death was announced by his long-time colleague and friend Veena Merchant. He died after complications from a weeklong bout of jaundice.

An institution builder, he founded the India Abroad newspaper, the Indo-Asian News Service (IANS), the Indian American Foundation (IAF) and the Indian American Center for Political Action (IACPA). At the time of his death, he was the publisher of the weekly newspapers News India-Times, Desi Talk and Gujarat Times.

A pioneering advocate of the two-million Indian diaspora in the US, becoming involved first in the life of their adopted country, and then being a link to their homeland, he made India Abroad his passion for serving as an information bridge between the community and their native country.

Later, he founded the IACPA in 1993, which extended this community involvement to US politics from Washington to state and local levels.

Under the Center's tutelage he placed about 200 Indian American interns with Congressional and Senate lawmakers in Washington, D.C.

PRESS FREEDOM: NY-based Pakistani editor threatened

CPJ reports that Majeed Babar, the executive editor of Weekly Asia Tribune has received a death threat. From the press release below:

The editor of a New York-based weekly told CPJ he received a death threat. Majeed Babar, executive editor of the Weekly Asia Tribune, said a man called him on March 29 and told him, “We will cut you to pieces” in Urdu.

Babar said the threat was linked to opinion columns and paid advertisements promoting a beauty pageant in his print and online newspaper, the Weekly Asia Tribune. The Tribune is a multilingual publication aimed at New York’s large South Asian community.
The columns are by a California-based contributor named Imam Shumshad Nasir, who is a leader of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, which was expelled from Pakistan in the 1970s because they were considered “non-Muslims” by the government.

The call was part of a larger pattern of intimidating incidents directed against Babar, he said.

“We call upon the New York authorities to fully investigate reports of threats,” said Joel Simon, CPJ’s executive director. “The authorities must send a clear signal to those who seek to intimidate or censor journalists.”

Full press release below. Post your comments, please.

AWARDS: Adrees Latif wins Pulitzer Prize for Photography

This year's Pulitzer Prizes have just been announced. The one South Asia connection I see is that the Breaking News Photography prize has gone to Pakistan-born and Bangkok-based photojournalist Adrees Latif of Reuters.

He won for his photo of a Japanese videographer being attacked in Myanmar (see below).

From the citation:

For a distinguished example of breaking news photography in black and white or color, which may consist of a photograph or photographs, a sequence or an album, in print or online or both, Ten thousand dollars ($10,000).
Awarded to Adrees Latif of Reuters for his dramatic photograph of a Japanese videographer, sprawled on the pavement, fatally wounded during a street demonstration in Myanmar.

Also nominated as finalists in this category were: Mahmud Hams of Agence France-Presse for his picture of a missile, caught in mid-air, as it falls on a target in the Gaza Strip while young Palestinians scramble for safety, and the Los Angeles Times Staff for its powerful and often unpredictable photos that captured wildfires devastating California.

From his biography:

Born in Lahore, Pakistan on July 21, 1973, Adrees Latif lived in Saudi Arabia before immigrating with his family to Texas in 1980. Latif worked as a staff photographer for The Houston Post from 1993 to 1996 before joining Reuters. Latif graduated from the University of Houston in 1999 with a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism. Latif has worked for Reuters in Houston, Los Angeles before moving to Bangkok in 2003 where he covers news across Asia.

See excellent coverage of Latif, including lots of photos by him, at Pakistaniat.

See the full list of winners and finalist in this PDF or on Pulitzer.org.

Manish Vij of Ultrabrown reports:

Fiction winner "Oscar Wao" by Junot Diaz has several desi refs.
http://www.ultrabrown.com/posts/revenge-of-the-dominican-nerds

See SAJA's collection of South Asia and the Pulitzer Prize over the years:
http://www.saja.org/resources/pulitzers.html

And SAJAforum's coverage of the 2007 awards ceremony.

Post your comments below.

PRESS FREEDOM: NYT's Barry Bearak held in Zimbabwe; Sivapathasundaram released

[June 27, 2008 UPDATE: Listen to a webcast with Dileepan Sivapathasundaram]

[April 7, 2008 UPDATE: AFP reports Bearak has been released]

Barry Bearak, one of the most respected American journalists working today, has been caught up in the ugly situation in Zimbabwe. He has just spent his second night in a cell in Harare. He was there covering the elections that appear to have thrown out the corrupt government of Robert Mugabe, but the regime is doing all they can to delay the official results. From NYT, Saturday morning NY time:

A journalist for The New York Times  detained by the police in Zimbabwe spent a second night in a jail cell on Friday, after government authorities overruled the attorney general’s decision to set him free.

The journalist, Barry Bearak, and a British citizen who was also arrested, were swept up at a small hotel in the suburbs of the capital, Harare, on Thursday afternoon. The action appeared to be part of a crackdown by government forces after an election that seemed to be turning against President Robert Mugabe and his 28-year grip on the country.

Offices of the main opposition party were also raided, while an American democracy advocate helping local groups monitor the elections was arrested at the airport.

That American democracy advocate has been released. Dileepan Sivapathasundaram is a Sri Lankan-American senior program officer at the National Democratic Institute ("a non-partisan, non-profit, non-governmental organization that aims to support democratic values and practices in more than 60 countries"). He is now in with American officials and we will provide updates as we get them (more on him from a 2004 press release below).

The Times is doing all it can to help secure Bearak's release and several journalism organizations are monitoring the situation (see resources below).

Bearak and his wife, Celia Dugger, are co-bureau chiefs in Johannesburg, South Africa. They also have strong connections to South Asia as they were co-bureau chiefs in New Delhi from 1998 to 2002, just as America's interest in the subcontinent was increasing. The two-person team helped take the NYT's coverage of India and the region to a whole new level. Bearak won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting for his series of reports on daily life in war-torn Afghanistan (see that series and other work by him on his Times Topics page). He won a 2001 SAJA Journalism Award for "Back to Life in India, Without Reincarnation," an account of how the Association of Dead People fights for the rights of Indian citizens falsely declared dead.

If we learn of anything others can do to help him get released, we will let you know here.

[On a personal note, I want to add that I have had the privilege of working directly with Barry when he joined the Columbia Journalism School faculty for a couple of years after his Delhi posting. I had first met him in 1998 as he was preparing to head to India and was doing his prep work - spending weeks and months learning about the region, the people and the issues  before he headed out. He threw himself into teaching the same way: preparing in a way I had never seen a new prof do before. He sat in on other classes, watched his colleagues and never stopped taking notes. By the end of his first semester he'd emerged as one of our best and most popular teachers, so it was tough to learn that he and Celia were heading back into the field, for this Johannesburg job. We look forward to his safe release from jail, and after his posting, his eventual return to the classroom.]

Resources and more info:

• NYT executive editor Bill Keller's memo on Bearak's arrest
• Keller on Bearak, day two.
• CPJ on the history of press repression in Zimbabwe

Please post your comments below.

TV: Daljit Dhaliwal anchors "Global Watch" Special on PBS

Anchor and reporter Daljit Dhaliwal has a PBS special airing on April 9 online and on TV. From the press release below:

International broadcast journalist Daljit Dhaliwal has been named anchor of GLOBAL WATCH, a half-hour special program currently in production for PBS by KCET/Los Angeles. The announcement was made today by Al Jerome, KCET president and CEO. GLOBAL WATCH is a television and digital media initiative, which explores issues of interest around the world with particular attention to how the United States is perceived abroad. It will air nationally on PBS on Wednesday, April 9 at 10:30 p.m. (Please check local listings.) <snip>

“Daljit has covered international news stories throughout her career as a news anchor, including wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, conflicts in the Balkans and the ongoing turmoil in the Middle East,” said Jerome. “She is highly respected and the perfect choice to anchor such an ambitious project.”

“It is extremely gratifying to have the opportunity to anchor and report for GLOBAL WATCH,” said Dhaliwal. “There is a tremendous need for all of us to understand the critical role America plays in the world. Everything from politics to popular culture has an impact on how the rest of the world views the United States.”

Asked to comment, Dhaliwal told SAJAforum:

In this day and age it's impossible to overstate America's global influence. Yet one of the things that's often missing from the media coverage is an examination of how the rest of the world sees us. Global Watch will seek to address those perceptions in a nuanced way.

Dhaliwal, who many of you met at the 2006 SAJA Convention, is really busy journalist. Her full-time gig is anchor of "Foreign Exchange" on PBS. She took overfrom Fareed Zakaria a couple of months ago (Zakaria has joined CNN where he will be hosting his own show soon). She's also a frequent anchor at ABC News Now - ABC's digital platform.

See the full press release below, and post your comments.

These photos are from KCET/PBS and the one above shows NBC correspondent Mark Mullen, doing a live shot with Dhaliwal from Beijing about China's pollution problem.

J-EDUCATION: High School journalism in the U.S.

Below you will find four items about high school journalism in the U.S.

I am always a little jealous when I meet students who have journalism programs in their high schools. I didn't encounter a journalism program till I came to graduate school. The places I did my high school (Fiji) and college (India) didn't have in-house journalism programs when I was there.

1. Take a look at all the resources at ASNE's HighSchoolJournalism.org. Stuff there for all ages.
2. Dow Jones Newspaper Fund has an awards program to recognize great high school journalism teachers.
   

   The annual program selects and honors the nation's top journalism teacher,
   four Distinguished Advisers and several teachers cited as Special
   Recognition award winners. The Teacher of the Year acts as a spokesperson
   for scholastic journalism.

   Details below.
3. The Columbia Scholastic Press Association is having its annual convention, gathering 3,000ish high school journalists from around the country. I have been happy to see a good sprinkling of South Asians among them.
4. Joe Van Harken, a former student of mine, has spent the last eight months working on a new eight-part MTV documentary series called "The Paper." The show centers around an award-winning
   high school newspaper in South Florida. "One of our goals is to show that smart kids can be cool too... another, to spark interest in journalism among teens nationwide."
   The show starts airing April 14, at 10:30 pm after "The Hills". Sneak a peek below.
   
   
   • MTV
   • Music Videos
   • MTV Shows
   • Entertainment News

Post your comments below.

J-ORGS: AAJA's new Governing Board elected

Some SAJAers and good friends of SAJA are in AAJA's new governing board, which was elected today. Congrats - we look forward to continuing to work with AAJA.

From the press release:

Six new AAJA Governing Board members were elected by the Advisory Board during its meeting in San Francisco March 7. Newly-elected were: Abe Kwok, Arizona chapter; Cheryl Tan, New York chapter; Don Chareunsy, San Diego chapter; Matt Dunn, San Francisco Bay Area chapter; Sharon Chan, Seattle chapter; and Ameet Sachdev, Chicago chapter.

The six will serve a two-year term. The Governing Board ensures that the organization fulfills its mission, meets the needs of its constituencies, and operates legally, effectively, and efficiently. The other members of the Governing Board are the elected National Officers: Jeanne Mariani-Belding, president; Janet Cho, Vice President for Print; Jam Sardar, Vice President for Broadcast; Cynthia Wang, Treasurer; and Doris Truong, Secretary.

More information is available on the Board of Directors page.

Three positions for National Officers are up for election at the UNITY Convention in Chicago this July: President, Vice President for Broadcast, and Treasurer. Their new terms begin on January 1, 2009. Nominations are due March 17.

 

AWARDS: Peter Bhatia, Sandy Rowe are E&P's "Editors of the Year"

Peter Bhatia and his boss, Sandy Rowe, executive editor and editor, respectively, of The Oregonian, have been named "Editors of the Year 2008" by Editor & Publisher, the trade publication for the newspaper industry. In an eight-page spread in the magazine, writerJoe Strupp tells us that the duo are "Partners in Portland: Sandy Rowe hired Peter Bhatia nearly 15 years ago -- and they've been a winning pair ever since." The Oregonian has won five Pulitzers and had nine finalists over that time period. Read the entire piece, as a PDF, here.

Three questions for Peter Bhatia:

SAJAforum: Congrats on the award. Let's start with the standard question asked in these circumstances: How do you feel?
Bhatia: I'm fine ... other than a sore lower back and problems with a tendon in my right shoulder. Seriously, it is nice for Sandy and I to be recognized, but the real work is being done and the credit goes to the superb colleagues we have here. It is an amazingly talented group.

SAJAforum: Newspapers seem to be in real trouble. Are they? And can they ever get their groove back?
Bhatia: I still believe in newspapers. We have to reinvent ourselves for the new information era in which we are living. If we do that -- and do so fast enough -- there is hope for the future. One thing for certain: no one can  distill, explain and context information better than newspaper journalists. That is our future.

SAJAforum: What tips do you have for young journalists who are getting in the business now?

PREZ RACE: Obama gets 'Little India' endorsement; editor gets 5 Questions

[See SAJAforum coverage, sources and resources about the 2008 elections]

An unusual message landed in my the other day. An endorsement of a presidential candidate from a South Asian publication. "Little India Endorses Barack Obama," said the subject line (see our earlier cover of the mag's list of the top Indian-American bundlers). Here's part of the endorsement (which you can see in full here):

Little India has decided to break from its tradition of staying out of the primary selections by endorsing Sen. Barack Obama for the Democratic Party nomination for president. We take this unusual step as we have come to share his inspiring message and his call for the "fierce urgency of now."

We value the Clintons' long association with the Indian American community and with India, so the decision to endorse her opponent has not been easy. But there is something magical and transcendental in this moment about Sen. Obama both for the country and the Indian American community.

His life story is in so many ways ours. In his political pursuits, he has defied both traditional paths pursued by minority politicians: identity politics built on narrow affiliations, typical of most ethnic leaders, as well as that of right wing politicians (like our own Bobby Jindal in Louisiana) who run from their history and identity. Obama, by contrast, has transcended boundaries. The Obama phenomenon, even if it does not get him the ultimate prize, offers something unique and it is important that we embrace this moment, for, as the Nobel Prize writer Toni Morrison wrote in her endorsement of Obama, "this is one of those singular moments that nations ignore at their peril."

We reject the proposition that Sen. Hillary Clinton's experience trumps the promise that Obama has to offer. As Sen. Obama has retorted: "One of my opponents says a vote for me would be a gamble. But the real gamble would be to do the same old things with the same old people over and over again and hope that the next time the results will somehow be different."

I asked Achal Mehra, the editor the magazine (founded in 1991 and bills itself as the largest Asian circulation publication in the U.S.) five questions about the endorsement, the political race and the magazine business.

My questions:

• Why endorse so early in the process, without waiting for the two-person race?
• What issues should the SA community be the most concerned about going forward?
• What is the history of SA pubs endorsing politicians in the U.S.?
• How's Little India doing? I see you say it's the largest ASIAN publication in the U.S., not just Indian or South Asian. When did that happen? I missed that milestone.
• What advice do you have for SAs thinking of starting their own magazines/newspapers?

See his answers, sent from Little India headquarters in the Empire State Building, and post your comments below.

BHUTTO: AP reporter Zarar Khan gets $500 for confirming Bhutto's death

[ RESOURCE: Benazir Bhutto Assassination ]

Associated Press reporter Zarar Khan was at the rally in Rawalpindi where Benazir Bhutto was killed, and managed to be the first to confirm she had died by rushing to Rawalpindi General Hospital. From a memo to AP journalists, reprinted by Jim Romenesko at Poynter.org:

With no car available, Khan ran until he flagged down a passing motorcyclist who took him the rest of the one-mile journey. Then he talked his way past police at the gate, past a Bhutto guard at the door and finally got inside the annex to the operating theater.

There a party aide confirmed that Bhutto was in serious condition and undergoing surgery. Khan phoned in that news (on a borrowed cell phone, since his had been lost in the bombing chaos) and then, when a doctor emerged and spoke to weeping party leaders, Khan learned from Bhutto's personal secretary that she had died. He got confirmation and time of death from a second party aide, while correspondent Munir Ahmad in the Islamabad bureau got further confirmation from a military source.

That gave Pakistan CoB [chief of bureau] Mat Pennington enough to file the FLASH with which AP broke the tragic news to the world.

The memo concludes by saying that Khan won a weekly prize of $500.

Post your comments below.

AWARDS: Pallavi Gogoi Wins Frontpage Award

From this year's list of winners of the Front Page Awards of the Newswomen's Club of New York:

Exercise/Diet
Pallavi Gogoi, Business Week
"Cloned Beef Burgers: 'Delicious.'"

You can read her story here, along with 660+ comments:

The FDA has said food from cloned animals is safe. Though it won't land in markets yet, cloned meat is being served at one company

See the accompanying slideshow, "Cloned Food Coming to a Store Near You."

Earlier this summer, she won a 2007 New York Press Club Award for her beat reporting on Wal-Mart:

Best Continuing Coverage

Pallavi Gogoi, BusinessWeek.com

“Wal-Mart”

Read Gogoi's bio and see several of her recent stories - including some of those Wal-Mart pieces here.

Post your comments below.

AWARDS: Moni Basu Wins Dart Center Fellowship

The Dart Center for Journalism & Trauma is one of the most important media institutions today. Its mission:

The Dart Center is a global network of journalists, journalism educators and health professionals dedicated to improving media coverage of trauma, conflict and tragedy. The Center also addresses the consequences of such coverage for those working in journalism.

It gives out the annual Ochberg fellowship:

Reporting responsibly and credibly on violence and traumatic events — on crime, family violence, natural disasters and accidents, war and genocide — is among the greatest challenges facing contemporary journalism. The Dart Center Ochberg Fellowship, now in its ninth year, was established by the Dart Center in order to better prepare journalists for this challenge. The fellowship is named for the Dart Center Executive Committee's Chairman Emeritus, Frank Ochberg, M.D., a psychiatrist and pioneer in the understanding of violence and trauma.

This year's winners include SAJAer Moni Basu of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, who has done at least six tours of duty as a reporter in Iraq. Here's her fellowship bio:

Moni Basu is a national and international reporter for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. She has covered the Iraq war and spent five months embedded with a Georgia Army National Guard brigade. She is now covering soldiers' re-entry into civilian life. She has also reported from Cuba, Chile, Norway, Jordan, Kuwait and India. She covered the devastating 2001 earthquake in Ahmedabad, India, military suicides at Fort Bragg, SARS in Toronto and West Nile virus in Louisiana. In 2005 she was honored as Journalist of the Year by the Atlanta Press Association and has also won awards from the South Asian Journalists Association, Associated Press Managing Editors and the Society of Newspaper Design.

See Moni's farewell post for the AJC's Georgians @ War blog. Congrats to Moni and we wish her the best during her fellowship.

Post your comments below.

 

RELIGION: Toronto Journalist Mixes Reporting, Priestly Duties

Here's an unusual journalists-in-the-news item.

From Metro Canada:

Becoming the “first North American-born Zoroastrian priest ever” also didn’t pan out for Panthaky (someone else beat him to the punch) but he did become ordained as a priest at 12. And today, while Panthaky isn’t being interviewed by hordes of journalists, he is often in their company.

In addition to presiding over the occasional Navjote (a Zoroastrian initiation ceremony), the 38-year-old Mississaugan is a reporter, writer and former sports anchor for OMNI News, South Asian edition. His television aspirations also trace back to early childhood, when he used to watch shows like 20/20 while babysitting. Aside from work and priesthood, however, today Panthaky is just a typical 38-year-old, enjoying music or attending a friend’s stag. “In our day-to-day lives, we’re regular people,” he insists. “(My priesthood) is just one of the many aspects that makes up the person that is Khush Panthaky.”

Read the full story here and post your comments below.

 

AWARDS: P. Sainath Wins Magsaysay Award, "the Asian Nobel"

"Complaint about SAJA email," was the subject line of a message I received last night. It was from SAJAer Jayati Vora, pointing out that we had not sent out information about a major award going to a fellow journalist. "I request that you send out an email about it; better late than never." Our apologies for the delay...

P. Sainath, one of the world's most influential journalists, has won the 2007 Ramon Magsaysay Award in the journalism, literature and creative communications arts. Previous South Asian winners in this category of the Magsaysay Award, routinely referred to as "the Asian Nobel prize," have included such luminaries as filmmaker Satyajit Ray, sitarist Ravi Shankar, editor Arun Shourie, cartoonist R.K. Laxman, journalist Bharat Dutta Koirala, among others (including my new colleague at Columbia J-school, Sheila Coronel).

Sainath, who serves as the rural affairs editor of The Hindu newspaper, was recognized  for "his passionate commitment as a journalist to restore the rural poor to India's consciousness, moving the nation forward." [Economist Amartya Sen has called him "one of the world's great experts on famine and poverty."]

He has spoken more often at SAJA-NY events than almost any other international journalist over the last 13 years. Pretty amazing, considering he lives in India (and famously spends almost 300 days a year in rural areas). Every one of his events has drawn a full house - and we hope to host him again in NYC.

Articles about Sainath and the award:

• The Hindu: Sainath wins Magsaysay Award
• Zee: P. Sainath: Voice from the Hinterland
• IndiaTogether.org: Archive of Sainath's columns
• Wikipedia: P. Sainath entry

The full award citation is below. More on the awards themselves here. Post your comments - and congratulations - below.

OBIT: Dilip Ganguly, Veteran AP Journalist, Dies