Press Release

Gov. Schwarzenegger; LAPD Chief Bratton at NAHJ Convention

Media Contacts: Rosa María Santana, rsantana@nahj.org, (213) 627-0388 or Lisa Goodnight, lgoodnight@nahj.org, (202) 662-1274

Washington, D.C. – The National Association of Hispanic Journalists will hold “A Conversation with Arnold Schwarzenegger”, the governor of California, to open the 25th Anniversary NAHJ Convention and Media & Career Expo to be held June 13-16 in San Jose, California.

Gov. Schwarzenegger and Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton are featured among other speakers and panel participants who will tackle hot topics including the fallout from a police clash with journalists at a recent immigration rally in Los Angeles, the rise in violence against Latinos by hate groups, and the splitting of mixed-status families by stepped-up worksite raids and deportations.

Chief Bratton is scheduled to be at a session on Friday morning, June 15. Gov. Schwarzenegger will be the featured guest at the Opening Plenary on Wednesday, June 13 at 6 p.m. at the historic California Theater in downtown San Jose.

“California has been a leader in critical issues like the environment, immigration reform and access to health care insurance, so it will be a great chance for journalists from all across the country to hear directly from the governor on what he thinks the future holds,” said Iván Román, NAHJ’s executive director.

Schwarzenegger will be interviewed by a trio of journalists led by Rick Rodriguez, executive editor of The Sacramento Bee. NAHJ has often used this conversation format to kick off the annual convention, most notably in recent years with Mexican President Vicente Fox, the then newly-elected mayor of Los Angeles Antonio Villaraigosa, and Ricardo Alarcón, the president of Cuba’s national assembly, via satellite from Havana.

Convention participants will also discuss the pattern of invisibility of Latinos in media and U.S. history, exemplified most recently by the Ken Burns’ documentary THE WAR about World War II. Journalists will explore the effects of the trend to the political left in Latin America, demonstrated most dramatically by the government shutdown of a television station in Venezuela. An anchor from that station has been invited to attend.

“This is a very topical convention with issues that are hot right now,” Román added. “Immigration is at the top of the national agenda and affects us in so many ways professionally and personally that it makes sense for it to have a prominent role on the program.”

The main panelists also include national and local immigration activists; journalists injured in the clash with police; a child whose parents were deported to Mexico after a worksite raid; Jaime Zuieback, acting director for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Office of Public Affairs; Maggie Rivas-Rodriguez, a journalism professor who leads the Defend the Honor Campaign to lobby to include the Latino experience in the documentary about World War II; and Mark Potok, director of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Project, who monitors the activities of hate groups in the U.S.

Under the theme “NAHJ@25: Building Today, Shaping Tomorrow,” about 1,500 journalists and media executives are expected to come to San Jose for the largest gathering of Hispanic journalists in the country. The convention at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center and the Marriott San Jose will feature programming that looks to the future of news and the media industry and how technology is changing journalism.

Internet giants Yahoo! and Google will have representatives at the convention on a session titled “The Digital Revolution” and 12 multimedia training sessions are sprinkled throughout the convention.

For this 25th Anniversary Convention, NAHJ will honor its founders who first came together in San Diego in 1982 and decided to establish what is now a 2,000-strong national organization dedicated to increasing the representation of Latinos in the country’s newsrooms and advocating for more fair coverage of the Latino community. At the 25th Anniversary Celebration Gala on Saturday at the Fairmont Hotel, NAHJ will induct its newest members into the NAHJ Hall of Fame – Latino journalism pioneers and mentors from California Cecilia Alvear, Rigo Chacón and George Ramos.

For more information about the convention and its programming, go to Convention Programming. On-site registration will be available at the San Jose Convention Center starting on June 13.

This year 49 companies have committed their support thus far with sponsorships to underwrite the various social events, student programs and workshops planned for the 25th Anniversary Convention. The lead sponsor for the convention is The McClatchy Company. For a complete list of sponsors, please visit NAHJ Convention Sponsors.