Host Continuity for AAJA 2003

From the 16th annual Asian American Journalists Association Convention, you’re listening to The Beat. I’m Sasha Khokha.

This year’s AAJA convention is in sunny San Diego. Imagine, almost a thousand Asian journalists -- all together -- in a beautiful hotel right on the water. Every day we walk down a path lined with palm trees, bright bouganvillia and yellow hibiscus. We pass fountains shaped like whales and seahorses, and tall-masted boats resting on glassy blue water. We take a good, long look out at the Bay – and then head into a windowless, airconditioned room.

That’s right, we’ve spent a week in paradise – sitting inside. We’ve skipped the luaus and the fish taco parties. We were too busy riding the audio waves. . .so we could bring you some of the most cutting edge radio about the Asian American Experience. This is the Beat.

The Beat mentors are Ann Marie Baldonado from WHYYs Fresh Air, Henrik Meng (Mung) from Golden State Warriors Radio, Cindy Johnston and Doug Mitchell, both from National Public Radio. Our technical director is Tom Krymkowski (Krim-COW-ski) from KQED in San Francisco. Our project director is Wilma Consul from NPR.

We’d like to thank Michael Marcotte and the staff of KPBS in San Diego, NPR’s Scott Horsley, and the Beat Founder, Traci Tong from The World.

Join us next year, when AAJA teams up with the National Association of Black Journalists, the Native American Journalists Association, and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. It’s UNITY 2004 - the largest and most diverse gathering of journalists of color... and it will be in Washington, DC next August.

We’ll see you there. For The Beat, I’m Sasha Khokha.