Cecilia Alvear
Freelancer & Independent Multimedia Journalist
Cecilia Alvear, a pioneering Latina journalist in television news and the former President of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists was a Field Producer with NBC Network News for 25 years until her retirement February 1, 2007. She was the Network’s Mexico City Bureau Chief from 1982 until 1984 when she was transferred to Miami to serve as the Senior Producer for Latin America. In 1989 she was assigned to the West Coast bureau in Burbank, CA.
As a producer Alvear has covered many major news stories; among them, the wars in El Salvador and Nicaragua in the 1980′s, the Mexico City earthquake in 1985, protests and elections in Chile and the “War on Drugs” in Bolivia, Peru and Colombia, the Mengele investigation in Brazil, unrest in Panama, two interviews with Fidel Castro in Cuba, the Pan American Games in Havana, the Barcelona Olympics, the Zapatista rebellion in Chiapas, the Colosio assassination in Mexico, the take over of the Japanese embassy in Lima Peru by Tupac Amaru guerrillas, all the events that have affected the Los Angeles area in recent years: riots, earthquakes, Hollywood, immigration, elections, fires, the O.J. Simpson trial. She also covered the Columbine shootings, the WTO disturbances in Seattle and she was onboard the USS Lincoln for the “Mission Accomplished” moment.
In 1998 she was part of the NBC News team that reported on Hurricane Mitch in Nicaragua and Honduras and covered the historical Papal visit to Cuba. In 1999 she produced stories on another Papal visit to Mexico and on the earthquake that damaged Armenia, Colombia, and the turnover of the Panama Canal to the Panamanians. In 2000 she produced stories marking the 25th anniversary of the fall of Saigon.
After her retirement she has continued to work as a freelance journalist writing for Huffington Post and producing stories for NBC News. In 2007 she produced stories from Ecuador for the “Today Show” programs on global warming. In 2008 Alvear produced a story about indigenous cocoa growers in the Ecuadorian Amazonian and in May 2010 she was the producer of a story about the re-tortoising of a Galapagos island.
In 1988 Cecilia Alvear was one of twelve American journalists chosen for the prestigious Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University where she spent the academic year 1988-89.
Prior to joining NBC, Alvear worked in the Los Angeles area for all three network-owned local stations. While working at the CBS outlet, KNXT (now KCBS), as a producer for “Two on the town” she was part of a team that won the local “Emmy” in the best series category.
In the 70′s and early 80′s Alvear was a Board Member and Vice President of the California Chicano News Media Association, one of the first organizations of Latino Journalists. She was honored for her “pioneering efforts” on behalf of CCNMA at their 1996 Scholarship dinner.
Alvear has been a member of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists since the 80′s. She has participated in the annual convention as a panelist, speaker and/or recruiter for NBC News. Alvear was elected Vice President-Broadcast in 1996 and represented NAHJ on the Board of the Radio and Television News Directors Association. In 2000 she was elected to a two-year term as President of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. That same year she made the “Hispanic Business” list of the “100 Most Influential Hispanics in the United States.”
In 1995 and 1996 Alvear was Editor at Large of “Si,” a short-lived magazine depicting the Latino experience in the U.S.
Cecilia is currently a member of the Advisory Board to the Nieman Foundation for Journalists at Harvard University, the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas Austin Forum at the University of Texas at Austin and Unity Journalists of Color.
A cancer survivor, Alvear is aware that she was a privileged patient with access to outstanding doctors and the ability to undergo a risky and experimental procedure (a type of autologous bone marrow transplant) which she believes accounts for her survival. She is also aware that for low-income people these options are not available and for this reason she also served for a time on the board of “Padres contra el Cancer” (a non-profit group that helps Latino children with cancer and their families) and HealthLaw ( which works to make health insurance available to low-income people).
Born in the Galapagos Islands of Ecuador, Cecilia Alvear immigrated to the United States in the 1960′s and became a U.S. citizen in 1984. She frequently returns to the Galapagos, where she is helping to upgrade the public elementary school first started by her late father, the former military governor of the islands.
Back to top | Back to board of directors
Tom Arviso, Jr.
Publisher and CEO,
Navajo Times
Navajo Times Publishing Co., Inc.
Window Rock, Ariz.
Tom Arviso, Jr. a Navajo originally from Window Rock, Ariz., is publisher of the Navajo Times newspaper. He also is chief executive officer of the newly created Navajo Times Publishing Company, Inc. Arviso was hired as editor of the Navajo Times in 1988 and assumed the duties of editor and publisher in 1993. He was a sportswriter and news reporter with the Navajo Times Today, the first and only Native American owned daily newspaper, from 1984 to 1986.
Before that, Arviso wrote for The Arizona Indian, a monthly publication based in Phoenix. He is a former board vice president and treasurer of the Native American Journalists Association and is a member of the Arizona Newspapers Association board. In 1997, he was awarded NAJA’s “Wassaja Award” for “extraordinary service to Native journalism.” In 1998, he was honored by the Arizona Newspapers Association with the “Freedom of Information Award.” He won a John S. Knight Fellowship in 2000 to 2001 and studied newspaper management at Stanford University.
He is the first and only full-blood Native American to have been selected for a Knight Fellowship. Arviso majored in journalism at Arizona State University and Mesa Community College.
Back to top | Back to board of directors
Sharon Chan
City Hall Reporter,
The Seattle Times
Seattle, Wash.
Sharon Chan is city hall reporter for The Seattle Times. She has covered the mayor, city counsel, Fortune 500 companies, Christina Aguilera, Medicare fraud as the University of Washington and accounting tricks at the regions largest Internet firm.
Ms. Chan focuses on political coverage that holds elected officials accountable and safeguards the public’s money. She has worked on police accountability stories that led to changes in Seattle’s system of civilian oversight. During the last local election, she broke news that a political candidate had been arrested for driving while intoxicated.
At The Seattle Times, she has worked as a business reporter, education reporter, assistant features editor, weekend metro editor and with the investigative team. Previously, she served as managing editor for Orange Coast magazine.
Ms. Chan joined the UNITY board in 2009. She has previously served on the national governing board for the Asian American Journalists Association.
She graduated from Pomona College and is a frequent speaker for the Investigative Editors and Reporters.
Back to top | Back to board of directors
Janet Cho
Business Reporter,
The Plain Dealer
Cleveland, Ohio
Janet H. Cho, AAJA’s National Vice President for Print, is a business reporter for The Plain Dealer in Cleveland, Ohio. Her beats include retail, marketing/advertising/branding and about 20 local companies. Prior to joining The Plain Dealer, she worked at the Sun-Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; the Times-Union and Democrat & Chronicle in Rochester, N.Y. and at USA Today.
Cho is a graduate of the University of Chicago, Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, and AAJA’s Executive Leadership Program.
She is looking forward to her fifth UNITY convention in Las Vegas.
Back to top | Back to board of directors
Jen Christensen
NLGJA Vice President, Broadcast
Investigative Producer & Documentarian
CNN
Atlanta, GA
Jen Christensen is a Peabody-award winning producer for CNN Special Investigations & Documentary Unit. In that role, Christensen has produced a variety of in-depth investigative stories and compelling long-form documentaries for CNN Presents, the most honored documentary series in cable news. She is based at CNN’s Atlanta headquarters.
Christensen served as a producer for the Peabody and DuPont award-winning CNN Presents: God’s Jewish Warriors; and the award-winning documentaries about Martin Luther King Jr., Words That Changed a Nation; Black in America: Eyewitness to Murder; and Obama Revealed; Sarah Palin Revealed; and Christiane Amanpour’s Generation Islam. She also produces regular investigative pieces for CNN’s primetime programs. And has been a regular freelance reporter for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Professional Photographer’s Association Magazine, the Advocate, Pain Solutions, and Sirius OutQ News.
Previously, Christensen ran the investigative unit for WSOC-TV in Charlotte, N.C., and started the investigative unit at WTVQ in Lexington, Ky. where she also worked as a line producer. While still in college, she started her broadcast career at WXIN in Indianapolis running the assignment desk and as a line and field producer.
Prior to her broadcast journalism career, Christensen worked in London on nuclear non-proliferation issues for NATO’s Atlantic Council and worked re-drawing voter redistricting maps at the Chicago Board of Elections. She is listed as a co-author for two books: Women Public Speakers in the United States, 1925-1993: a Bio-Critical Sourcebook (Greenwood Press, 1993) and Women Confronting Retirement – A Nontraditional Guide (Rutgers Press, 2003).
Christensen severs on several non-profit boards. She is the Vice President for Broadcasting with the National Lesbian and Gay Journalist Association, a KEYS core team member at Turner Broadcasting, and the Secretary for GirlsRockCampATL.
She holds a bachelor’s degree from Butler University in TV/radio and political science with a gender studies minor and also attended the London School of Economics where she studied foreign policy and economics.
Back to top | Back to board of directors
Joanna Hernandez
UNITY President
Multiplatform Editor,
The Washington Post
District of Columbia
NAHJ
Joanna Hernandez lives in the District of Columbia and is a Multiplatform Editor at The Washington Post. Previously, she worked as a copy editor for The Record and the Herald News, two newspapers owned by the North Jersey Media Group. Before that, she was director of the Feature Production Center for The New York Times Regional Media Group; held several newsroom positions, including weekend entertainment editor, at The Star Ledger in Newark, N.J.; was a copy editor at the San Francisco Examiner in California; and was a copy editor at Newsday in Melville, N.Y.
She began her journalism career as a reporter for several newspapers in New York and Connecticut. She earned a B.A. in Journalism from New York University, an A.A.S. from the Borough of Manhattan Community College and is a graduate of the management training program at the Robert C. Maynard Institute for Journalism Education at Northwestern University.
She has been a member of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists since 1993 and is a former director of NAHJ’s Region 2, representing members from Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Vermont.
Sue Green
Assistant News Director & CNS
Walter Cronkite School of Journalism
Arizona State University
Tempe, AZ
Susan Green is the Broadcast Director of the Cronkite News Service and Assistant News Director in the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University. She came to ASU in August 2006 from KNXV-TV where she served as Managing Editor at the ABC affiliate. In her 21 years as a broadcast professional, Green held positions at stations in Phoenix, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles and New York City.
In her first year at ASU, Green helped launch the Cronkite News Service to provide student-produced news stories to television stations across the state. She and the students work out of a facility in downtown Phoenix, where they have a newsroom and studio equipped for live broadcasts and satellite feeds to stations in Yuma, Tucson, and Phoenix.
Green also serves as Assistant News Director of NewsWatch, the Cronkite School’s award-winning student-produced newscast. The program is seen live in 1.2 million homes Monday through thursday.
Green began her career at KPNX-TV, the NBC affiliate in Phoenix, moving up from associate producer to executive producer. She also held executive producer positions at WUSA in Washington, D.C., and WABC-TV in New York City and worked as a writer and producer at KTTV in Los Angeles.
She wrote and produced the Telly Award-nominated A&E documentary, The Man Who Would Be Chief. She is the recipient of a Peabody Award for WABC’s coverage of the events of Sept. 11, 2001.
Green is also one of four authors to write a newly launched textbook entitled News Now: Visual Storytelling in the Digital Age. She also just returned from conducting two workshops in Serbia on Diversity in the media.
Green received her bachelor’s degree from the Cronkite School in 1985.
Back to top | Back to board of directors
George Kiriyama
NBC Bay Area
California
George began his broadcasting career in Midland /Odessa, Texas. From there, his career took him north to Grand Rapids/Kalamazoo, Michigan.
During his four years in Michigan, he was honored by the Michigan Associated Press for his individual reporting and received an honorable mention for his series “Surviving the Economic Slowdown,” by the Michigan Association of Broadcasters.
He spent four years as a general assignment reporter in Kansas City, Missouri before coming back to California to join NBC Bay Area. George is a two-time EMMY nominated reporter. He earned an EMMY nomination for Breaking News in 2010 for his coverage of the 2009 Oscar Grant Riots in Oakland, CA.
He was also nominated for an EMMY in 2008 for his role in the NBC Bay Area Documentary “Dreams To Dust: Americans Interned”. He interviewed members of his family who are former survivors of the internment camps during World War II.
George is very active in the Asian American Journalists Association serving as the National Vice President for Broadcast. In 2007, he was named “AAJA Member Of The Year.”
He graduated from Cal State Fullerton in 1994 and was inducted into the school’s “Wall Of Fame” in 2006.
When he is not in front of the camera, George enjoys tennis, reading, traveling, hip-hop dancing, swimming and dining out. In addition to his passion for history and politics, he is an avid sports enthusiast. George appreciates being able to visit his family more often now that he is back in California.
Back to top | Back to board of directors
Patty Loew, Ph.D
Professor,
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Producer,
Wisconsin Public Television
NAJA
Patty Loew, Ph.D., is a professor in the University of Wisconsin-Madison Department of Life Sciences Communication as well as a producer for Wisconsin Public Television. She hosts “In Wisconsin,” WPT’s weekly news and public affairs news-magazine program that spotlights stories about people, places and issues in Wisconsin. Patty previously co-hosted WPT’s award-winning WeekEnd program that aired statewide for 10 years. She has worked as a news anchor and reporter for Madison’s WKOW-TV where she did environmental reporting, documentary production, public speaking and special projects. Patty also was a travel reporter at KATU-TV in Portland, Ore. She co-hosted PM Magazine in Spokane, Wash., and was a news anchor and reporter for WXOW-TV and WKTY-AM and WSPL-FM radio in La Crosse.
A member of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe, Patty is an award-winning author of Indian Nations of Wisconsin: Histories of Endurance and Renewal, which won the Wisconsin Library Association’s 2002 Outstanding Book Award. Her second book, Native People of Wisconsin, won the 2003 Best Juvenile Non-fiction Award from the Wisconsin Writers Council. Her documentary, “Way of the Warrior,” which received the 2008 Unity Award from the Radio and Television News Directors Association, aired on PBS stations across the country in the fall of 2007. Her freelance feature articles and guest columns have appeared in The Capital Times, Madison Magazine and the Wisconsin State Journal. The many awards for her work include a Media Excellence Award, several Best of Madison awards, an Orchid Award, the Writer’s Cup Award and the Portland Mayor’s Award.
Source: http://wpt2.org/npa/iwMeetUs.cfm.
Back to top | Back to board of directors
Peter Ortiz
Reporter,
Ignites
Jersey City, N.J.
NAHJ
Reporting and writing on diversity issues has been my focus over the last four years as a journalist. My total experience spans more than 12 years (10 years as a newspaper journalist and 2.5 years as a magazine/Internet reporter and writer).
I first proposed a diversity beat in 2003 while with The Arizona Republic newspaper. At this time I worked out of the paper¹s East Valley bureau and realized a need to cover the growing diversity in the area. My reporting and writing included coverage of immigrant communities, both Latino and Asian, and how they were redefining a mostly white community.
I moved onto to a senior writer position with DiversityInc magazine in 2004 where I focused on diversity in corporate America. My coverage included interviews with corporate leaders and writing on corporate diversity trends as well as examining diversity¹s relevance in business and society. In February 2006 I traveled to Iowa to show the impact immigrants were having in the state’s economy, but where they often remain invisible and marginalized. In May 2006 I traveled to Brazil where I reported and wrote on how racial discrimination continues to deny nearly half the population real opportunities and hurts Brazil’s ability to compete globally.
Currently I live in Jersey City, New Jersey, where I work as a freelance journalist.
Back to top | Back to board of directors
Michaela Saunders
UNITY Treasurer
Retail Reporter
Omaha World-Herald
NAJA
Michaela Saunders is the retail business reporter for the Omaha World-Herald, where she has worked since 2003.
Prior to taking on the retail beat, she covered the education at the World-Herald for nearly seven years. Saunders took part in the Poynter Summer Fellowship for Young Journalists and was a Kaiser Family Foundation Public Health Reporting intern at the Cleveland Plain Dealer.
Saunders holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication at Iowa State University. She is a member of the Native American Journalists Association.
Back to top | Back to board of directors
Michele Salcedo
Weekend Political Desk Editor
The Associated Press
NAHJ President
Michele Salcedo has been a member of NAHJ since 1988. She is the program co-chair for the 2010 convention, and was the convention co-chair for the 2006 convention in Fort Lauderdale, which is hailed as one of the most successful NAHJ has held. She served five years on the board of directors, as General At-Large Officer, Secretary and Region Four Director.
While on the board, Salcedo wrote the policy and guidelines for chapter formation, pushed to diversify NAHJ’s funding, expand membership and provide more programming and training for midcareer journalists.
Salcedo works at the Washington Bureau of the Associated Press, where she is an editor on the national general news desk and also edits on the broadcast wire desk.
She is a veteran newspaper reporter and editor who has held a wide range of assignments and beats for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Newsday and the San Antonio Light.
At the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Salcedo twice led the Race and Demographics team of senior reporters, including the only full-time newspaper reporter in Havana, Cuba, in coverage of South Florida’s communities of color and immigration. She also produced Sun-Sentinel.com’s Cuba and Americas page. As the paper’s National-International Editor Salcedo headed a department of 11 reporters and editors. She led the planning of the paper’s Cuba transition coverage and oversaw the 10th anniversary coverage of 9/11, and the Organization of American States General Assembly in Fort Lauderdale.
Salcedo has reported from throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. An award winning journalist, she is the author of Quinceañera! The Essential Guide to Planning the Perfect Sweet 15 Celebration. Salcedo is an alumna of the Poynter Leadership Institute, class of 2008, which she attended on a Newspaper Association of America fellowship. She holds a master of science degree from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, where she was selected into the International Fellows Program, and a bachelor of science degree from Grand Valley State University in Allendale, Mich., where her concentration was arts and media.
Outside the office, Salcedo, a Chicago native, can be found on the tennis courts and has recently taken up tango. She enjoys cooking and taking in all the culture that Washington has to offer. Her Mii stays in shape boxing and playing tennis.
Back to top | Back to board of directors
David Steinberg
NLGJA President
Copy Desk Chief
San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco, CA
David A. Steinberg is copy desk chief at The San Francisco Chronicle, where he has worked since 1996. He also serves as editor of The Chronicle Stylebook and chairs the paper’s Style Council, which sets the newspaper’s usage guidelines.
He worked previously as a copy editor at the Boston Herald and the BPI Entertainment News Wire in Boston.
In 2010, he was elected to a second two-year term as president of the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association during the association’s 20th anniversary conference in San Francisco. He was first elected to NLGJA’s national board in 2001 and served as NLGJA treasurer from 2004 through 2008.
Steinberg lives in his hometown of Oakland, Calif., with his husband, Gregory Foley.
Back to top | Back to board of directors
Michael Triplett
NLGJA Vice President, Print & New Media
Assistant Managing Editor
BNA, Inc.
Arlington, VA
Michael Triplett is the Assistant Managing Editor for the Daily Tax Report at BNA, a subsidiary of Bloomberg focusing on the legal and regulatory market. He previously oversaw international freelance correspondents and worked as a reporter covering employment law and policy, including the Supreme Court and Congress. In 2006, he won a National Press Club award for an analysis of employment issues in the video game industry.
Before coming back into journalism, Michael worked a variety of jobs from teaching high school to running university residence halls to managing a legal clinic for people with HIV/AIDS. He has a journalism degree from the University of Missouri, along with degrees in political science and a masters degree in education. He has a law degree from American University’s Washington College of Law and was admitted to practice law in Maryland.
Michael is currently the vice president for print and online news for the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association. He has also been a member of the national board and the treasurer and president of the Washington, D.C. chapter. He is one of the primary bloggers on NLGJA’s Re:Act blog, chaired the governance committee, and overseen NLGJA’s Excellence in Journalism awards.
He has written extensively about LGBT media issues as a blogger and freelance writer. He has been interviewed by The Guardian, the New York Times, the Poynter Institute, The Advocate and National Public Radio regarding issues ranging from outing public figures to bloggers posing as lesbians.
Back to top | Back to board of directors
Doris Truong
Multiplatform Editor,
Universal News Desk
The Washington Post
Doris Truong works at The Washington Post as a multiplatform editor on the Universal News Desk. She focuses on editing stories for the Web and the newspaper, as well as publishing blog posts and writing captions for online photo galleries. She has been The Post’s deputy Metro copy chief for the Extras, shepherding a staff producing 13 weekly suburban sections, and she was in the National and Style departments as a copy editor/slot. She helped edit The Post’s 2010 “Top Secret America” project and worked on the Jack Abramoff investigative reporting package that won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize. Before coming to The Post in 2003, she was a copy editor/slot on the universal desk of the Dallas Morning News. She is the 2011-12 national president of the Asian American Journalists Association and is an active member of the American Copy Editors Society. She is a Maynard Media Academy alumna, a former fellow of the American Association of Sunday and Feature Editors, and a graduate of AAJA’s Executive Leadership Program. She has been a faculty member at the Poynter Institute and has presented sessions during multiple journalism conventions. She is on the Board of Directors for UNITY: Journalists of Color.
Doris is a graduate of the Missouri School of Journalism and a native of Western Colorado. Away from the office, she’s likely to be planning her next road trip (fewer than 10 U.S. states left to visit!), testing a recipe in the kitchen, playing board games or looking for people to accompany her on a karaoke outing.
Michael Tune
National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association
2121 L St. NW, Suite 850
Washington, DC 20037
Tel: (202)588-9888
mtune@nlgja.org
Michael Tune currently serves as Executive Director of the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association (NLGJA). He is entrusted to implement NLGJA’s programs which are designed to strengthen and aid our network of members from across the country. Michael’s passion is in business development, employee growth, and organizational success.
Socialize with UNITY