Nahj.org, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists website that is useful for any journalism students and in particular those involved with the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.
NAHJ was founded in 1984, to give a national voice and unified vision for all Hispanic Journalists. The goals and missions of NAHJ include as stated on the website “to organize and provide mutual support for Hispanics involved in the gathering or dissemination of news, encourage and support the study and practice of journalism and communications by Hispanics, foster and promote a fair treatment of Hispanics by the media, further the employment and career development of Hispanics in the media and finally to foster a greater understanding of Hispanic media professionals’ special cultural identity, interests, and concerns.”
NAHJ has approximately 2300 members which consist of journalism educators, working journalists, journalism students and other media related professionals. NAHJ is governed by a board of 18 members of executive officers and regional directors.
NAHJ is sponsored by donations and advertising on their website. They offer space on the right side of their website pages for advertising. Other than that the only way I see they raise money is though donations.
The website is a useful tool for journalists, but I would think it would be more useful to journalism students and educators. It offers information regarding upcoming events such as conferences in different regions. The homepage has many different links to useful information including tabs specifically for professionals, students, convention news and multimedia. All of those tabs are on the top of the website. If you scroll down the site is divided into several sections. Those sections include “lo ultimo” which includes information about events coming up and conference information. The section brings the highlights from the whole website and puts them in one section for people to look in one spot. This section, which is the biggest also, includes recent articles in the news that have to do with Hispanic journalists, or have some impact of Hispanics. A second section is titles “Guest Bloggers” where different guest give their thoughts on journalism and how it will affect members of NAHJ. One of the blogs by Fernando Diaz talks about new social media and guidelines for journalists. He helps identify “a policy for behavior in the rapidly growing social media space.” Other sections include the latest information on convention news, information for professionals, information for students and the last includes the latest information on media advocacy. These sections are useful to journalism students and professors because they provide information about other ways of learning about journalism including conferences and scholarship opportunities.
In each section there is something about the regional conferences. They are pushing these opportunities to learn a lot about how journalism is changing how they can embrace the change in the industry.
Overall I would rate this website a 4. It is a very useful tool for those members who are very interested in NAHJ. However I don’t think other journalists would seek out this website. It is a lot about upcoming events and less about the change in journalism and what students can do to embrace it.
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After visiting the site I agree that it is very heavy on their event/conference content. I noticed at the bottom that there is a section titled "the latest info for students" which raises students awareness about various internship opportunities. Also, the tab at the top titled "for students" has a separate section titled "internships" that has a lot more internship opportunities available for various hispanic journalists. These are important factors to this site because internship experience is valuable to students aspiring to be professional journalists. This site seems helpful for students but I don't think it would benefit professionals as much.
ReplyDeleteIt's wonderful that NAHJ helps build a national voice for Hispanic journalists. Hispanic journalists seem to be a great minority and Hispanic students need positive motivations and influences as they move forward. NAHJ website seems to do just that. By offering information and learning resources it helps provide a solid foundation for these students to build on. I think a 4 is an appropriate ranking seeing as how the site seems pretty heavily reliant on its conference pitches.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the content on the site is driven towards students. However, the conferences are listed under the "For Professionals" tab. To me this makes sense because if professionals do not learn about the changing industry, then they risk their job. The site seems all about offering opportunities to students, members, and professionals. They do this by not only promoting the conferences, but also including the scholarship and internship listings for members.
ReplyDeleteThe majority of the site content does seem to be aimed more toward students than professionals, we all agree. It seems as though the organization web site is telling more of the changing state of journalism besides how the change directly affects hispanics. I say that because I couldn't really find any information on how they are treated in the workplace, portrayed in the media or some of the challenges they face due to being hispanic. I'm sure the conferences address these topics in more depth than the site does, especially for the professionals who attend the conferences. This organization seems to be more geared in bringing members of a same group together than coming together to help the group be more successful in the journalism profession, as I saw with NABJ. Regardless, great site for student journalists to practice their skills.
ReplyDeleteAs mentioned, this is a great site for students and somewhat for professionals. I think everything mentioned is true, but the content on the homepage that struck me the most was the latest on media advocacy and the guest bloggers section. The media advocacy section called for Mexican journalists to resist from being silenced, which was a great and informational piece to read. The blogger section helped put a perspective on how hispanics think about the here and now, especially calling for more hispanics to seek journalism. I do wish, as the NABJ Web site had, that there was a section regarding how hispanics are treated in the workplace and obstacles they must overcome. It seems as if all minority sites should have a section like this to help their situations. If newsrooms read about treatment and obstacles, then maybe they would do more to correct problems in their workplace if they had problems.
ReplyDeleteHannah, I agree with your observations. However, I think you were a little generous on the rating. NAHJ does some great things for the journalism community. However, this site does not do much more than publicize their organization. There isn’t anything specific to nahj.org that provides me with tools or advice from simply reading. If I want more information about the group, I will log on. Otherwise, I probably won’t visit the site again.
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