Thank you for joining us at our 25th anniversary conference and gala. We hope you enjoyed the event and will continue to support SAJA. Click here for the list of winners and finalists. We hope to see you at future events! If you're just learning about us, please consider a donation or become a member. It's easy and gets you access to our job bank, insider events and strong network. Thank you, SAJA Board Pictures Credit: Jay Mandal/ On AssignmentPanels#SAJA25 CONFERENCE PROGRAM AT CRAIG NEWMARK GRADUATE SCHOOL OF JOURNALISM AT CUNY, NYC
SPEAKERS AT SAJA25PANEL: BREAKING INTO THE INDUSTRYNiraj Chokshi is a general assignment reporter based in New York. He previously covered policy and breaking news for The Washington Post and has also covered technology and politics for The Atlantic, politics and policy for National Journal, and the business of law for The Recorder, a newspaper in San Francisco.
Mallika Rao is a writer with bylines across digital and print media. Her nonfiction work has appeared, often regularly, at the Village Voice, Atlantic.com, Vulture, the New York Times, newyorker.com, Marie Claire, Real Simple, TOPIC, the Rumpus, VICE, and Believer Magazine. Recent fiction can be found at Catapult. In 2019, she toured the coasts of the U.S. as a contributor with Pop Up Magazine. She has profiled a range of subjects, including Hasan Minhaj, Chloe Wise, Salman Rushdie and Fatima Asghar. Yoshita Singh is an award-winning journalist with over 15 years' experience of reporting from the US and India on foreign relations, international trade, global policy, business and culture. She is currently the Chief United Nations and New York Correspondent for Press Trust of India (PTI), India's largest newswire headquartered in New Delhi. Yoshita has previously worked in New Delhi, Chicago and Boston. Moderator: Mihir Zaveri covers breaking news at The New York Times. Previously, he was a local government reporter at the Houston Chronicle. He holds a graduate degree from the University of California, Berkeley School of Journalism. Mihir serves on the board of SAJA. PANEL: EXPLORING CULTURES THROUGH FOODLavanya Ramanathan is the editor of The Highlight, Vox’s new features journalism platform. She previously was a features reporter for the Style section of The Washington Post and worked at the Orlando Sentinel and Newsday. @lalamasala Tejal Rao is the first California restaurant critic for The New York Times, and a cooking columnist for The New York Times Magazine. She lives in Los Angeles. She has won two James Beard Foundation awards for restaurant criticism — one in 2013 for her work at the Village Voice, and one in 2016 for her work at Bloomberg News. In 2019, she was awarded a Vilcek Prize in creative promise for her reporting at the New York Times.
@aartivirani PANEL: TACKLING UNDERREPRESENTATION OF AAPI STORIESLakshmi Gandhi is a freelance journalist and social media manager based in New York City. Her work has appeared in NBC Asian America, Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, The Juggernaut and Metro New York, among other places. While a student at Newmark Journalism School at CUNY, she began a pop culture blog devoted to the South Asian diaspora, a project that led her into the world of arts and culture reporting after graduation. She often writes and reports on the worlds of literature, identity, and film. Rachel Ramirez is a senior engagement fellow at Grist where she manages social media platforms, newsletters, and reports on environmental and climate justice. She is a Dow Jones News Fund and Asian-American Journalist Association VOICES alumni. Previously, she worked at the Financial Times, Willamette Week, and the Oregon Business magazine. @saeed_ahmed Moderator: Snigdha Sur is the founder & CEO of The Juggernaut, a Y Combinator and Precursor Ventures-backed media company telling smart South Asian stories and news. She has worked at McKinsey New York, in Bollywood, in media-focused venture capital/PE, in product/marketing at an Indian video streaming company, and in launch strategy for Reese Witherspoon's Hello Sunshine. She graduated from Harvard Business School as a Baker Scholar with an MBA and magna cum laude from Yale College in Economics and South Asian Studies. PANEL: REPORTING ON POLITICS OF IMMIGRATION & FOREIGNNESSHamed Aleaziz covers immigration for BuzzFeed News, where he tracks major policy changes under the Trump administration and the people most impacted by them. Prior to BuzzFeed News, Hamed covered immigration and general news at the San Francisco Chronicle.
@Haleaziz Deepti Hajela has spent more than 20 years in daily journalism, and covers the major events of the day from one of the most high-profile cities in the world. She joined The Associated Press after earning her undergraduate and graduate degrees from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications. She's a member of The AP's immigration team and its race and ethnicity team. She has won awards for stories that look to give her global audience new ways of looking at the world around them. Deepti is a former SAJA President.
@dhajela
Tanvi Misra a staff writer at CQ-Roll Call, covering immigration and homeland security. Previously, I wrote about immigration, criminal justice, and housing at CityLab, The Atlantic's website about cities. My work includes exclusive reportage, investigative data dives, award-winning features, and in-depth policy analyses.
@Tanvim Sabrina Siddiqui is a national politics reporter at The Wall Street Journal, where she is covering the 2020 presidential election. She is also a political analyst at CNN. Previously, Ms. Siddiqui covered the White House and 2016 presidential race at the Guardian. She was also a politics reporter at The Huffington Post from 2012 to 2015. Ms. Siddiqui got her start in the industry working on the White House desk at Bloomberg News after graduating from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. @pavnimittal PANEL: ALL THE WAYS TO REPORT ON SPORTS
Adi Joseph is the Editorial Director, CBS Sports at CBS Interactive. He leads NBA and college basketball coverage. He has covered sports for a decade, including NBA All-Star and playoff games, U.S. Open tennis, NASCAR races and more.
@AdiJoseph Priya Desai is a multimedia journalist who covers the intersection of sports and politics. She is a senior correspondent at Sports Illustrated and produces long-form features and serves as hard news correspondent for morning live show, SI Now. She has also reported for NY1, The Daily and iaTV.
@priyadesai Sheil Kapadia writes about the NFL for The Athletic. He previously covered the Philadelphia Eagles for The Athletic and for Philadelphia Magazine's Birds 24/7 site. Sheil also covered the Seattle Seahawks for ESPN.
@SheilKapadia Moderator: Sopan Deb is a basketball writer for the New York Times, after having covered the culture beat. He covered Donald J. Trump's presidential campaign for CBS News, and his work has appeared on NBC, Al Jazeera America and elsewhere. His debut book, "Missed Translations: Meeting The Immigrant Parents Who Raised Me," is due out in April, through Harper Collins.
@SopanDeb PANEL: COVERING THE BIGGEST GLOBAL STORIESAkbar Shahid Ahmed covers U.S. foreign policy for HuffPost. Based in Washington, D.C., since 2014, he closely tracks Congress and government agencies, developments in America's relationships with its partners and rivals abroad, and the national conversation on international issues. He's reported from Europe and much of the Muslim-majority world and provided commentary for MSNBC, Al Jazeera, BBC, and other outlets, as well as at SXSW and other events. He is a graduate of Yale University and has previously written for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Generation Progress at the Center for American Progress, and Pakistan's DAWN newspaper and Newsline magazine.
Tania Rashid is an award-winning journalist who presently works as a special correspondent for PBS Newshour. The focus of her work has been on human rights, and women’s issues. She has contributed to networks including: Channel 4 UK, The National Geographic Channel, Vice Media and CNN International. She is a graduate of the University of California Los Angelesand has a masters in Broadcast Journalism and documentary from Columbia University. Ishaan Tharoor writes about foreign affairs, geopolitics and history for The Washington Post. He previously was a senior editor and correspondent at Time magazine, based first in Hong Kong and later in New York.
@ishaantharoor Siddhartha Mahanta is a features editor at Insider. He has also served on the editorial staffs of The Atlantic and Foreign Policy. Before that, he was a writing fellow for Mother Jones. His writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The New Republic, The Washington Monthly, Bookforum, and elsewhere. PANEL: PODCASTS - STORYTELLING WITH AUDIOSean Rameswaram is the host of Vox’s daily news podcast, Today, Explained. Before joining Vox, Sean reported for WNYC’s Radiolab series More Perfect, where he produced deep features on guns in America, gerrymandering, and other urgent constitutional questions. Before WNYC, he was a reporter for PRI’s Studio 360, as well as the host of Studio 360’s Sideshow podcast and CBC’s Podcast Playlist.
Madhulika Sikka is a media executive with more than two decades of experience across all platforms - video, audio, digital - creating content, launching new initiatives and managing high performing talent. She is the Executive Producer of Audio at The Washington Post. Prior to that she acted as in independent media consultant for a variety of media entities including The Daily Beast, WNYC, Penguin Random House, WAMU, Takepart/Participant Media advising on editorial, talent and organizational strategy. She also served as the public editor of PBS.
Moderator: Anushka Patil is a social editor at The New York Times and the co-host of “The Cardamom Pod” by Kajal Magazine. Previously, she was a news curation editor at BuzzFeed News.
@anushkapatil WORKSHOP: LEARN HOW TO NETWORK
Raakhee Mirchandani is an award winning writer and editor. She is the Editorial Director, Diversity & Inclusion at Barron's Group/ Dow Jones and a parenting columnist at Elle magazine. She is also a celebrity ghost writer, speech writer and the author of Super Satya Saves the Day. @Raakstar PANEL: BEING HEARD IN A NEWSROOMAnup Kaphle is the editor-in-chief of The Kathmandu Post. Before returning to Nepal last year, Kaphle spent a decade working in US newsrooms, focusing primarily on international reporting and foreign affairs. He was most recently the executive editor at Roads & Kingdoms, producing stories at the intersection of food, travel and foreign reporting. He previously worked as the deputy foreign editor for BuzzFeed News in London, and prior to that, as the digital foreign editor for The Washington Post and a digital fellow for The Atlantic. Swati Sharma is the Managing Editor at The Atlantic. She guides the daily reporting at TheAtlantic.com and oversees all of the site’s sections—Politics, Culture, Technology, Ideas, Science, Family, Global, Health, and Education—and their teams. She was previously deputy general assignment editor at The Washington Post, and before joining the Post in 2013, she covered nightlife and hyperlocal news at The Boston Globe. Harmeet Kaur is a producer for CNN’s trends team, where she covers national news and writes stories that spark social conversations. Previously she worked on CNN’s digital programming team, keeping readers informed and engaged through push alerts and creating compelling news feeds for CNN’s mobile website and app. She is a graduate of Emory University, where she studied international affairs and journalism. Originally from the small town of Pikeville, Kentucky, she currently calls New York City home.
@harmeeeetkaur
Moderator: Sameepa Shetty is a producer for Squawk on the Street and Squawk Alley at CNBC. She was previously at AJAM, Fortune and has worked at Bloomberg TV India. RESUMÉ CRITIQUEAnusha Shrivastava is the Director, Career Development and Alumni Relations, Dept. of Statistics at Columbia University. She designs, organizes and manages career-related and alumni events, including workshops and career panels, for the largest Statistics department in the US. She also helps recruit students for the department, traveling both within the US and overseas to share information about the MA in Statistics program at Columbia. Previously, Anusha was a business journalist reporting for The Wall Street Journal and AP among others. Prabha Natarajan is the deputy editor for WSJ Professional Products. She joined the Journal in 2008 as a mortgage bond reporter where she tracked the freezing of structured finance during the crisis and its subsequent reopening. Prior to joining the Journal, Prabha was an award-winning reporter at the Washington Business Journal, Pacific Business News and the Hindu Business Line. She has an M.A. in Journalism from the University of Missouri-Columbia and an M.A. in English Literature from the University of Madras, India. "SPEED DATING" WITH EDITORS At #SAJA25 attendees will get quick mentorships from the top editors in American journalism. From career advice to pitching stories - come prepared for a 10 minute one-on-one chat with the best in the industry. As journalists navigate the volatility of today's news industry, hiring managers and senior editors who make hiring decisions, will provide journalists a uniquely valuable and practical understanding of what it takes to succeed. This session would allow journalists to interact with decision makers, not for a job interview, but to learn what it takes to land a job at their organization. Time slot will be provided on a first-come-first-served basis during the registration. Pro tip: Get notes, makes notes.
Peter Bhatia, a multiple Pulitzer Prize-winning editor who has spearheaded meaningful journalism and digital advances at numerous news sites across the country, is editor and vice president of the Detroit Free Press. He comes to Detroit from the Cincinnati Enquirer, where he was editor for two years and also served as regional editor for the USA TODAY Network’s Ohio Region. Bhatia previously was director of the Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism at Arizona State's Cronkite School of Journalism. He joined the university in June 2014 as visiting professor in journalism ethics after a two-decade career at The Oregonian in Portland, where he was editor. He is the first journalist of South Asian descent to lead a major daily newspaper in the U.S. @peterbhatia
S.Mitra Kalita is the senior vice president for news, opinion and programming for CNN Digital. She was previously the managing editor for editorial strategy at the Los Angeles Times, served as executive editor at large for Quartz and worked at the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, Newsday and the Associated Press. She is the author of two books related to migration and globalization, including the highly acclaimed "Suburban Sahibs," and "My Two Indias". A former journalism professor at St. John's, UMass-Amherst, and Columbia University, she also previously served as president of the South Asian Journalists Association. @mitrakalita
Ravi Agrawal is the managing editor of Foreign Policy and author of India Connected: How the Smartphone Is Transforming the World's Largest Democracy. Before joining Foreign Policy, Agrawal worked at CNN for 11 years in London, New York, and New Delhi, including a four-year stint as South Asia bureau chief. He has won a Peabody award and received three Emmy nominations for his work as a TV producer. Agrawal was born in London, England, and grew up in Kolkata, India. He is a graduate of Harvard University. Karen Mahabir is the fact-check editor at The Associated Press. She has also been a reporter, editor and producer for the AP in their Mexico City, Washington and New York offices. Karen has also served as the managing editor for news for The HuffPost, and spent many years as a newspaper reporter and columnist. Pia Sarkar oversees coverage of autos, airlines and energy as an editor at The Associated Press, guiding breaking news and distinctive enterprise. She also serves as co-leader for the AP's Race & Ethnicity team. She was previously deputy editor for the AP's East region. Prior to the AP, Pia served as executive editor of The American Lawyer's website and associate editor for The Daily Journal legal publication in California. She was also a reporter at The San Francisco Chronicle, TheStreet.com, The Record of Woodland Park, New Jersey and The Providence Journal. @PiaSarkar_TK Chris Opfer is a managing editor (labor & employment), Bloomberg Law, covering policy, politics and court battles that shape the way people work. A licensed attorney and member of the New York Bar, Opfer has been reporting for Bloomberg BNA since 2012. He started at Bloomberg BNA as a Labor Economics Reporter, tracking various employment-related economic indicators, and later reported on Congress and the courts before taking his current position. Opfer was awarded a National Press Foundation Paul Miller Washington Reporting Fellowship in 2013. @ChrisOpfer Vikas Bajaj has worked at The New York Times since 2005. Before becoming a senior staff editor in the Business section in August 2018, he was a member of the editorial board. He previously was a correspondent based in Mumbai, India, and covered housing and financial markets for the Business section in New York. Born in Mumbai, Mr. Bajaj grew up there and in Bangkok, and he received a bachelor’s in journalism from Michigan State University. He came to The Times from The Dallas Morning News. @vikasbajaj Bhumika Tharoor is the deputy director of The Atlantic's Talent Lab, the arm of the newsroom focused on hiring and development. Prior to that, she was at CNN helping build award-winning teams across DC and NY for brands such as CNNPolitics and The Lead with Jake Tapper. She joined from The Washington Post as a corporate recruiter and is certified in behavior-based interviewing. Bhumika has implemented projects on culture and digital transformation in the media space. She is currently pursuing her MBA from Georgetown University. @bhumikatharoor Meghna Rao is the managing editor of The Juggernaut, a New York-based premium website focused on South Asia and South Asians around the world. A lifelong New Yorker who grew up in Queens, Rao left home for India the summer after she graduated, spending four years writing about technology, first for the investment firm Unitus Ventures and then for Tech in Asia. @meghn_a Sponsors$5,000 - BRONZE LEVEL SPONSOR $5,000 - BRONZE LEVEL SPONSOR $5,000 - BRONZE LEVEL SPONSOR $5,000 - BRONZE LEVEL SPONSOR $2,500 - LEVEL 1 SUPPORTER $1,500 - SUPPORT LEVEL SPONSOR ---
Interested in becoming a SAJA Awards Ceremony sponsor?
Check out the packages below:
Platinum- $20,000 10 full awards ceremony registrations 1 Promotional pamphlet Advertising and promotions: -Full-page advertisement in awards ceremony program -Tile advertisement in 4 SAJA e-mails -Logo placement on SAJA website -Logo placement in Awards/SAJA media presentation ======================================================== Gold - $15,000 8 full awards ceremony registrations 1 Promotional pamphlet Advertising and promotions: -Full-page advertisement in awards ceremony program -Tile advertisement in 4 SAJA e-mails -Logo placement on SAJA website -Logo placement in Awards/SAJA media presentation ======================================================= Silver - $10,000 5 full awards ceremony registrations 1 Promotional pamphlet for awards ceremony bag Advertising and promotions: -Half page advertisement in awards ceremony program -Tile advertisement in 2 SAJA e-newsletters -Logo placement on SAJA website -Logo placement in Awards/SAJA media presentation (Media companies: A two-person job fair booth for five hours worth $250 is included) ========================================================== Bronze - $5,000 4 full awards ceremony registrations 1 Promotional pamphlet for awards ceremony bag Advertising and promotions: -Quarter-page advertisement in awards ceremony program -Name placement on SAJA’s website -Logo placement in Awards/SAJA media presentation ============================================================ Supporter (level 1)- $2,500 3 full awards ceremony registrations 1 Promotional pamphlet for awards ceremony bag -Logo placement on SAJA’s website (Media companies: A two-person job fair booth for five hours worth $250 is included) ============================================================ Supporter (level 2) - $1,500 2 full awards ceremony registrations 1 Promotional pamphlet for awards ceremony bag -Logo placement on SAJA’s website ============================================================
*OTHER NOTABLE SPONSORSHIPS: You can also sponsor one of SAJA's awards, presented at the Awards Dinner. Your company's name will be mentioned when the award is presented and also listed on our website as an award sponsor. Contact SAJA President Prerana Thakurdesai at prerana.thakurdesai@gmail.com for more details. |