Press Release

A Message from NAHJ President Veronica Villafaņe

Dear colleagues,

We're going through a season of change as NAHJ moves forward. A year after approving the creation of chapters in our association, I'm happy to report we now have three: Orlando, Fla., Charlotte, N.C., and Southwest Florida based in Naples and Fort Myers. Members in several other cities are going through the process of establishing more chapters.

We've also recently switched to calendar year dues in order to be more efficient in our membership department, and we're continuously looking for ways to increase services to our members. That's why we're improving our job database, enhancing our professional development programs, and working hard to increase diversity in newsrooms around the country to open more opportunities for our members.

In recent years, we have become increasingly aware of the growth of Spanish-language media and the need to reach out to those journalists by offering professional development programs in Spanish.

That's why in our new "ņ Media Training Series", we will be providing Spanish-language workshops around the country. We have also been working diligently to raise funds for our first Spanish-language leadership institute, which we hope to start early next year.

We have a lot of work to do, but it should not fall just on the NAHJ staff and board... all of our members have to chip in to help. While we definitely need donations to keep all of our programs afloat, we need more people to volunteer... for mentor programs, for the conventions, for regional events and to seek office.

NAHJ also has a new board as of August. The election participation this year was quite disappointing. It wasn't just because of voter apathy, but also because of candidate apathy. Nobody ran for office in regions 3 or 6 during the regular elections. We had to go to a special election for those two seats and for regions 1 and 8, which did have candidates, but whose petitions did not have enough qualified signatures since many of the members who signed were expired!

Once again, regions 3 and 6 failed to submit candidates for the special election, so, as our bylaws indicate, those regional directors were appointed by the president and will be ratified by the board.

We did find some excellent candidates for those positions and they've accepted the challenge, but I sincerely hope this never happens again. I realize the responsibility is great, but it's up to us to give back and to help shape change that, in the end, will benefit each and every one of us.