Press Release

Rosa Maria Santana Named Associate Director of NAHJ’s Parity Project

Washington, D.C. – The National Association of Hispanic Journalists named Rosa Maria Santana, a veteran journalist and former board member, the associate director of the association’s Parity Project.

Santana will be based in Los Angeles and will work out of the California Chicano News Media Association office. She will be responsible for working with media companies based on the West Coast that partner with NAHJ on the project.

The goal of NAHJ's Parity Project is to partner with English-language news organizations that serve large Latino communities, but do not have a representative percentage of Latino journalists working in their newsrooms. Through the Parity Project, NAHJ works with these organizations to increase the percentage of Latino journalists in their newsrooms and to establish stronger ties with Latino leaders in their respective areas.

So far, NAHJ has partnered with 12 newspapers and one TV station, including the Rocky Mountain News, the Ventura County Star, KCNC in Denver and the Corpus Christi Caller-Times.

“NAHJ is fortunate to bring someone on staff with such a strong commitment to improving the overall quality of journalism by helping the association to achieve its mission of diversyfing our nation’s newsrooms,” said NAHJ Executive Director Iván Román.

A California native, Santana has worked at several newspapers during her 10-plus year career. She worked at such papers as The Press Enterprise, the Arlington Morning News and the Cleveland Plain Dealer. She graduated with a master’s degree in American Politics from Claremont Graduate University in California and received bachelor’s degrees in communications and Spanish from California State University in Fullerton. Santana also served on the NAHJ board from 1999 to 2003, representing the Midwest region.