Notes from AAJA’s 2010 national conference in HollywoodPosted by Cody Kitaura on August 11th, 2010

Last week marked a couple firsts for me: my first trip to Hollywood and my first time at an Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA) national conference. I could write volumes on the people I met and the panels and workshops I attended.

In the interest of getting a post online sometime this year, here are a few quotations and tidbits, along with audio recordings from seven sessions I attended:

It would’ve been helpful if I had a code.

- Roxana Saberi, a journalist imprisoned in Iran on espionage charges. She said just after her arrest, her captors allowed her a supervised phone call where she was not allowed to tell her boyfriend where she was or why she didn’t make it home that night.
Read the rest of this entry »

Filed under: firsts, inspiration | 4 Comments

Reflections on covering my first real election nightPosted by Cody Kitaura on June 11th, 2010

Outside one of the election night parties I covered on June 8, 2010.I was told there would be pizza.

Coincidentally, I had a slice of pizza for lunch on the day of California’s June 2010 primary election. Maybe some part of my subconscious was telling me that I couldn’t really do my job without some kind of election-night day pizza. There was no newsroom party at our small, twice-weekly newspaper. Instead of a whole flock of staff members staying at the office late into the night, we had two reporters (myself and my editor) and two photographers bouncing around the two prominent races that were relevant to our area (a county supervisor race and a sheriff contest). I was assigned to the sheriff race, which I had been covering closely.

I would spend the night at two very different campaign parties – one at an upscale bar in midtown Sacramento, and another in the ballroom of a local hotel. I arrived at the first party (the upscale one) a short while after it was scheduled to start, and the candidate was nowhere in sight. I chatted with our photographer for a bit, and noticed there were at least four TV news vans and a photographer from the local metro daily.

Read the rest of this entry »

Filed under: firsts | No Comments