In honor of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, we’re highlighting seven innovative AAPI leaders working in local media and journalism around the country. The non-exhaustive list showcases lessons about leadership, advice for others and optimism for the future.
Emma Carew Grovum, Kimbap Media
Emma Carew Grovum is the founder of Kimbap Media, a consultancy focused on the intersection of journalism, technology, and audience. She is the director of programming for the News Product Alliance; her past experience includes The Daily Beast, The New York Times and Foreign Policy.
What’s one key lesson you have learned about leadership in your current role?
Leadership isn’t only about what you are like on your best days, a lot of it is about how you act, strategize and behave on your worst days.
What’s one piece of advice for local media leaders who want to better connect with their community?
Start by looking around your newsroom at your staff. Whose voices are missing from the decision-making tables? Whose voices are missing from the room entirely? If you aren’t serious about representing the community within your staffing ranks, why would those communities trust and do business with you?
What’s one thing you’re excited about in local media in the coming year?
I love good statehouse reporting. The act of bringing an average citizen through their state’s legislative session and process is a fine art that’s dying out. I’m excited to see these folks shine during midterms, hoping to see them doing interesting and innovative coverage.
I’m also excited by the amount of hiring that should be about to take place in local markets. Many newsrooms are staffing up and are struggling to find applicants, so it’s a great time for folks to be applying and getting hired.
Finally, I’m excited and inspired by the wave of journalists of color being tapped to lead local newsrooms, as well as the ones who are tapping themselves. There’s a generation of brilliant folks who aren’t “waiting for their turn” and are instead creating their own opportunities and bringing their peers along with them.
Sewell Chan, The Texas Tribune
Sewell Chan is the editor-in-chief of The Texas Tribune, one of the most successful digital nonprofit news outlets in the country. He previously worked at the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times and The Washington Post, and currently sits on the boards of the Columbia Journalism Review, Freedom House and the News Leaders Association.
What’s one key lesson that you’ve learned about leadership in your current role?
It’s not enough to be an excellent journalist. Newsroom leaders today need to have empathy, and to prioritize equity.
What’s one piece of advice for local media leaders who want to better connect with their community?
Ask ordinary residents to cite the biggest stories they feel are undercovered.
What’s one thing you’re excited about in local media in the coming year?
I’m impressed by the proliferation of innovation going on in local news — across public media, nonprofit newsrooms, and legacy commercial papers.
Paul Cheung, Center for Public Integrity
Paul Cheung is the CEO of the Center for Public Integrity, one of the nation’s oldest nonprofit investigative news organizations. Cheung previously worked for the Knight Foundation, NBC News and the Associated Press, and was the national president of the Asian American Journalists Association.
What’s one key lesson you have learned about leadership in your current role?
Celebrate vulnerability. Our vulnerability is what makes us unique as journalists, community storytellers and leaders. Vulnerability is a key driver to empathy.
What’s one piece of advice for local media leaders who want to better connect with their community?
It’s rather simple but few are doing it well. Listen without judgment and learn how to honor the community’s collective lived experience.
What’s one thing you’re excited about in local media in the coming year?
I’m most excited to see how this diverse group of local journalism leaders such as Julia B. Chan at the 19th, Katrice Hardy at The Dallas Morning News, Maria Douglas Reeve at The Houston Chronicle, Sewell Chan at The Texas Tribune, Richard Kim at The City, Kimi Yoshino at The Baltimore Banner, Rana Cash at The Charlotte Observer and others will catalyze new journalism solutions and collaborations that centers on community.
Yukari Iwatani Kane, Prison Journalism Project
Yukari Iwatani Kane is a founder, co-executive director and editor-in-chief of Prison Journalism Project, which trains incarcerated writers to be journalists and publish their own stories. She currently teaches at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, and previously worked for The Wall Street Journal and Reuters.
What’s one key lesson you have learned about leadership in your current role?
That’s a huge topic. I would say that the biggest thing I’m learning right now is how important talent development, mentorship and hiring is. As editor-in-chief and a co-founder, I often feel like I’m being pulled away from my “real work” when I’m interviewing candidates or I’m in mentorship or training meetings, but it’s part of the job and it’s hugely important. People need to feel valued, and they want feedback, so they can develop their careers. We owe it to them to give them that. A leader is only as good as their team.
What’s one piece of advice for local media leaders who want to better connect with their community?
It’s been really hard to do during the pandemic, but I’m starting to be reminded recently that we need to be out there interacting and making connections with community leaders.
What’s one thing you’re excited about in local media in the coming year?
I’m really optimistic about the resurgence in local nonprofit media. There is more interest than ever to develop this area, and I’m personally interested in how my organization, Prison Journalism Project, can partner with local media organizations to deliver stories around criminal justice and incarceration in a way that is relevant to them. Some of the most collaborative and imaginative minds are working in local media.
Guy Tasaka, Local Media Association
Guy Tasaka is the managing director of the Technology Resource Center at Local Media Association, which assists media organizations with strategies and consulting aimed at improving selection, implementation, optimization and long-term success of enabling technologies. Guy has been at the front edge of media disruption for the past 25 years, with diverse experience working in national media, media technology start-ups and local broadcasters and news organizations including Calkins Media, Ziff-Davis, The New York Times, Gatehouse Media and WideOrbit.
What’s one key lesson you have learned about leadership in your current role?
Fearlessness in the face of uncertainty! I work with publishers and CEOs of media companies of all sizes. Those who will succeed are those who will be willing to take what seems like riskier steps rather than follow a more conservative path. That sounded a little Sun Tzu — but now is not the time to hope.
What’s one piece of advice for local media leaders who want to better connect with their community?
Local media needs to add value, niche down, and super-serve smaller audiences. Also, as we found out during COVID, local businesses are an integral part of local life. Never more did we realize we’re all in this together. Local media need to serve them as much as they do their local residents or they will be lost to them forever. Reader revenue and philanthropic models will widen the gap between local media and local businesses.
What’s one thing you’re excited about in local media in the coming year?
I’m excited that we’re entering or living in a period of extreme disruption, where the lines between different media are blurring because of technology. There should be no difference between the opportunities for print, radio, television or pure plays because distribution technology is getting easier and cheaper. Publishers need to take advantage of this and meet their audience across all platforms.
Sisi Wei, OpenNews
Sisi Wei is the co-executive director of OpenNews, a community that helps journalists create a more equitable and inclusive industry, especially for journalists of color and local journalists. Previously, she worked at ProPublica and The Washington Post, and she has taught at New York University, The New School and CUNY.
What’s one key lesson you have learned about leadership in your current role?
The biggest lesson I’ve learned since stepping into my role as co-executive director is that in mainstream U.S. culture, leadership frequently defaults to meaning a single, great leader, but leadership is so much more than that. My co-executive director Erika Owens and I created our roles together, and decided together what it would mean to be leaders who share decision-making power, who are deep collaborators, and whose support of one another can allow them to “lead from a place of joy.”
What’s one piece of advice for local media leaders who want to better connect with their community?
Listen to them. I know that advice isn’t new, but if you’re running a local media organization, and you know that there are entire parts of your community that don’t read your work, know about you, or trust you, then it’s time to build or re-build that relationship in a respectful and empathetic way. There are many resources out there now on how newsrooms have accomplished this, so I’ll just share one from Oaklandside, and how they built their newsroom from a foundation of listening.
What’s one thing you’re excited about in local media in the coming year?
I’m really excited about the deep collaborations in local media. I’m talking about collaborations like Word In Black, which I know LMA supports, and URL Media. There is so much innovation happening in local media right now, and that innovation is creating new models for how we can work as journalists and journalism organizations. I’m so excited to see so many of them embracing and uplifting collaboration as a key element of their work.
Michael Yamashita, Bay Area Reporter
Michael Yamashita is the publisher of the Bay Area Reporter, the country’s longest continuously published and highest circulation LGBTQ+ newspaper. Yamashita began at BAR in 1989, and became general manager in 1995. After being named publisher in 2013, he purchased BAR Media Inc. in 2017.
What’s one key lesson you have learned about leadership in your current role?
I’ve learned to empower and trust team members. No one likes a micromanager and it’s not in my nature to be one. If you gather talented people, you should allow them to perform to the best of their abilities. I always look for people who are smarter than me.
What’s one piece of advice for local media leaders who want to better connect with their community?
You need to foster relationships. COVID broke these links. Zoom meetings are convenient but they can’t replace the relationships you develop from in-person meetings.
What’s one thing you’re excited about in local media in the coming year?
I’m excited about the return of events and businesses, which is key to sustaining local media. Advertising is set to match pre-COVID levels. Local media proved resilient during the shutdowns and many of those that survived have emerged more efficient and flexible.
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