Though my first post-graduate home didn’t have a local ONA chapter, it didn’t take long for ONADC to sweep me in when I moved to Washington D.C. a little under a year ago.  Being a part of a vibrant, energy-filled local chapter with strong leadership and a very active membership made me realize quite quickly that I wanted to play a role in leading the organization forward. I would be humbled to have both your support and your vote.

Moving in somewhat rapid succession from the safety net of college to a small startup in Kansas City to POLITICO, I began to understand just how important it is for ONA’s board to contain members with a diversity of backgrounds. That diversity includes geography, age, gender and work affiliation.

I’m not a CEO or an executive, though I one day hope to play both of those roles.  I’m two years out of college and on my second full time job.  I’m intimately familiar with the rigors of starting a career in journalism and distinguishing yourself among hundreds of equally ambitious and talented journalists.  So my platform and vision for ONA focuses on just that: I want to continue to expand our college and university chapters, which are incubators for future leaders of the organization, as well as to create more formal and informal mentoring opportunities for journalists in the first years of their careers.

However, I also want to push the organization to diversify its membership in all areas, including but not limited to race/ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation and religion.

Though I now live in DC, I went to college and grew up in Missouri, so I understand critics who say they sometimes feel like the organization is filled with journalists from the East and West coasts who treat middle America like “flyover country.” I have long advocated for conferences to reflect the geographic diversity and to be based in cities that are more wallet-friendly.  That said, I love the organization and feel lucky to have met many lifelong friends, co-workers, thinkers and innovators through attending the annual conferences, as well as local meetups in a number of cities.

Voting is open Friday Sept. 23 to Thursday Oct. 13. I encourage all ONA members to vote — and not just for me.

ONA is incredibly fortunate to have so many dedicated people running to lead us forward, so take a few minutes  and read all of the profiles and vision statements. It’s a bit trite, but a group is only as strong as its membership, and this sample of the thousands affiliated with ONA shows that we have a strong future ahead.

No matter if I’m elected to the board or not, I intend to keep showing up and being vocal in our community. Thanks so much to those that nominated me and urged me to put my ideas for the organization out there.  My favorite thing about ONA is that it has become one of the leading resources for Web journalists and a launchpad for so many tremendous innovators.

If you’ll be in Boston for this year’s conference, I’d love to get to know you and put a name to a Twitter handle, or a Facebook profile or a byline…  Check out my plans for the weekend (subject to change) or tweet at me if you’re around.

During the conference, I’ll be managing session volunteers Friday and Saturday afternoon, and will be speaking on a panel during the Career Summit on early-career professionals in high demand jobs.  Drop by, especially if you’re on the job hunt!

Thanks so much for being a dedicated and involved member, and I’d be honored to have your support in the election.

Six months ago today, I started my job at POLITICO, covering the moment-to-moment developments of the 2012 presidential race. If you know me well, or even just a little bit, you know that I love campaigns and elections and have always aimed to do this kind of reporting.

So, when the chance came to work for a company that I have always admired, I leapt. But it also meant making a really hard choice: moving halfway across the country from all of the important people in my life, including my boyfriend.

With a new flock of journalism graduates spilling out of colleges and universities across the country – some who will face that same tough decision – I thought I’d offer a couple of brief comments on surviving long distance, or how we’ve made it work.

I don’t blog about my relationship often , but I have learned that you can’t always separate the personal from the professional, and I think I’m better at what I do in the newsroom because I have the full support of the important people in my life.

Communicate: When I found out I was a finalist for the job, I went to my boyfriend with all the details and we talked it out. At the time, he was finishing his undergrad degree in Missouri so it meant that we would be voluntarily putting 1,000 miles between ourselves at least in the short-term. Notice I titled this tip communicate, not talk? Listening is the important part.  No matter how close you and your partner/spouse/boyfriend/girlfriend are, make sure to listen to what they’re saying and find out how they’re feeling every step of the way.  If you’re anything like me, and not a warm fuzzy person, it’s going to be emotionally exhausting.  But it’s worth it to check-in every so often and make sure feelings haven’t changed. I’m incredibly lucky to be in a relationship with the kind of person who gave me his full support to chase my dream and pursue a profession I love.

Figure out what works for you: I am not a phone person.  Save a couple of girlfriends who can keep me chatting for an hour or more, I am not a fan of long phone conversations.  My boyfriend isn’t either, so we communicate mostly via texts, emails and Facebook messages.  I can count on hearing from him at least once a day, and even if it’s just a message about what’s going on with his job or something silly a mutual friend did at the bar, it’s a much-needed part of my day.

Don’t keep score:  For a lot of personal reasons, I do more traveling than my boyfriend does. At one point, my mother asked me whether I resented that and if it was “fair” to me.  The way I see it, there’s no “fair” in a long-term relationship.  For me, it’s not about keeping a running mental total of who visits who more or who spends more money or who does more of anything.  It’s a relationship, not a checkbook register.  I made a conscious decision when I got into a relationship (and reaffirmed it when I moved) that I would never hold money or logistics over my boyfriend’s head. It just breeds animosity.

Live a little: When I first moved to DC, it felt like every time I went out to do something fun, I was thinking about how hard it was to live it up in a city that didn’t involve someone who was such a huge part of my life.  I’ll be the first to admit that it affected my overall demeanor. While I was doing great at work, I had no personal life to speak of and wasn’t fully taking advantage of this amazing city.  Six months later, I think I’ve gotten more of a hang of that balance.  Of course, I’d love it if we were experiencing this together as a couple, but there’s no reason to feel guilty for having fun on your own.

I’m borrowing from a much-needed support email from a friend who is something of a long-distance veteran here, but it’s the perfect way to wrap up this post:

I can honestly say that after all this time apart that old saying “absence makes the heart grow fonder” isn’t entirely accurate but absence does make the heart realize what it wants and what it’s willing to fight for. If you two can get through this, just think how much easier or less significant 99% of other problems you’ll face in life will be.

So for this age, for your time, I want you to just think about this: Think about NOT waiting your turn.

Instead, think about getting together with friends that you admire, or envy.  Think about entrepeneuring. Think about NOT waiting for a company to call you up. Think about not giving your heart to a bunch of adults you don’t know. Think about horizontal loyalty. Think about turning to people you already know, who are your friends, or friends of their friends and making something that makes sense to you together, that is as beautiful or as true as you can make it.

And when it comes to security, to protection, your friends may take better care of you than CBS took care of Charles Kuralt in the end. In every career, your job is to make and tell stories, of course. You will build a body of work, but you will also build a body of affection, with the people you’ve helped who’ve helped you back.

And maybe that’s your way into Troy.

There you are, on the beach, with the other newbies, looking up. Maybe somebody inside will throw you a key and let you in… But more likely, most of you will have to find your own Trojan Horse.

And maybe, for your generation, the Trojan Horse is what you’ve got, your talent, backed by a legion of friends. Not friends in high places. This is the era of Friends in Low Places. The ones you meet now, who will notice you, challenge you, work with you, and watch your back. Maybe they will be your strength.

If you choose to go this way, you won’t have Charles Kuralt’s instant success. It will take time. It will probably be very lonely. A living room is not a news room. It doesn’t feel like one. You know you’re alone. And on the way, you might get scarily close to not being able to afford a living room.

But what I’ve noticed is that people who fall in love with journalism, who stay at it, who stay stubborn, very often win. I don’t know why, but I’ve seen it happen over and over.

So, here, for what it’s worth, ladies and gentlemen of the Class of 2011, is my graduation advice. Some of you will say, “This is a fantasy. Pay this man no attention,” but hey, you invited me, so here’s what I’ve got:

If you can… fall in love, with the work, with people you work with, with your dreams and their dreams. Whatever it was that got you to this school, don’t let it go. Whatever kept you here, don’t let that go. Believe in your friends. Believe that what you and your friends have to say… that the way you’re saying it – is something new in the world.

And don’t stop. Just hold on… and keep loving what you love… and you’ll see. In the end, they’ll let you stay.

Today, one of my favorite sports writers Joe Posnanski, penned a fabulous farewell column to Kansas City that sums up exactly what I love and miss about it.

You should read the whole thing (twice), but here’s my favorite excerpt:

‎”Sure, people in Kansas City are nice. But I think there’s something about life in Kansas City, something about the pace, something about the ease of parking, something about the small market sports, something about the farming background, something about the opposing harshness of summer and winter, something that makes that good-hearted part of themselves come out.”

How it happened and why I did it?

I didn’t go into college planning to leave in less than the routine four years.

I attended the Missouri School of Journalism and entered college with sophomore standing due to a variety of tests, Advanced Placement exams and college credit earned from the University of Missouri system while in high school.  On top of that, I was a Walter Williams Scholar, which meant I was admitted to the journalism school at the end of my freshman year, while many students don’t enter the program formally until they’re juniors.

As early as my freshman year, I’d planned to use the extra time to study abroad or to participate in one of Missouri’s programs in New York or Washington.  Even then, I knew I wanted to be a political reporter and that spending time in one of those places would give me a great experience.

But that didn’t happen.

I found out that spending a semester abroad or in another city, while feasible, would have been incredibly expensive.  I footed the bill for most of my college education and couldn’t stomach the idea of stacking on more student loans or asking my mom to finance something that was really a luxury.  Instead, I got scholarships to spend a semester studying at Georgetown University in Washington while interning at the Washington Post as a web producer.

That left me with a dangling semester of college, and I had no idea what I was going to do with it.

At the same time, I started to stack my academic hand, taking as many as 21 credits in one (unwise) semester. I spent every semester reporting in some capacity, whether for the student newspaper, the local NPR affiliate or the daily newspaper managed by the journalism school. Most of the time, I was also holding down some kind of side-job to pay for my expenses.

I was also falling in love – with journalism.

I spent more classes than I can count banging out stories on my laptop instead of focusing my attention on whatever was going on in the room.  I spent long nights at the Missouri statehouse, only to be back on campus bleary-eyed the next day and questioning why I was pushing myself through classes that didn’t make much sense when all I wanted to do was report.

I decided during my junior year to put an end to all that and graduate early, rather than stick the full four years out at Missouri.  I love my alma mater and have immense respect for everyone I learned from there, but I had to get out and see if I could stand on my own two feet. So I sprinted through three semesters of college with 18 hours per semester and made it to the finish line, finally in December.

I graduated from Mizzou on the Dean’s List, without a double major and without studying abroad in 2009.  A year after graduation, I landed in Washington covering the White House race for POLITICO.

Why it was, in some ways, a failure:

I landed a job in my dream field at one of my dream companies, so why was this a failure?

It was, and it wasn’t.

There are a lot of benefits to graduating college early. I spent the semester I would have spent in the classroom interning for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch‘s bureau in the Missouri statehouse, which taught me more about political journalism than any one class ever could. I also cut down my student loan costs and was able to say that I was inspired and passionate about the work I was doing, and didn’t feel torn between fulfilling academic requirements and being a good journalists.

But now that I’m out, I find myself wishing I’d taken more advantage of the academic resources. I never took the great Computer Assisted Reporting or Investigative Journalism classes offered at Missouri, or enough classes that focused on politics and policy outside the United States (what can I say, I’m an American politics junkie?). I didn’t gain the practical experience copy editing that many of my colleagues gained from working on the Columbia Missourian’s copy desk for a semester. And I never experimented with classes that weren’t, in one way or another, serving my graduation requirements.

Instead, I sprinted from class to work to the newsroom in this weird, and not always fulfilling hamster wheel. If you knew me during college, you likely remember me running around like a crazy person more often than not. (Note: that has not changed.)

The end result was exactly what I wanted, but I think I could have managed the time between my freshman year and eventual graduation a lot better, and survived it all with fewer ulcers and grey hairs (!).

My advice to college journalists:

There are a lot of benefits to graduating college early, but there are also many to sticking it out.

College can be one of the best places to figure out who you are, who you want to be and what you’re passionate about. Find those things, then make it happen. It doesn’t matter if you graduate in two years or six.

If you’re in college right now, there will be classes that will test your patience and seem to make little sense in the plan you have for yourself. I’ll be the first to tell you that plans quickly disintegrate, and you might find yourself wishing you’d listened just one day in that statistics class.

Would I voluntarily do undergrad again? Doubtful. But I am considering a graduate degree, and will certainly take a much more calculated approach to any future academic attempts.

Here are some things your adviser probably won’t ever tell you:

Make college work for you, not the other way around. Take classes with great professors who challenge your thinking and the way you see the world. No matter if you want to be a television anchor, a product designer or a photojournalist, emphasize good writing. If you can, venture into a business, or marketing or computer science class. Focus on what you learn, not the letter grade. Remember your classmates’ names; you might end up working alongside them one day.

This post is part of the Carnival of Journalism. Here’s the topic we all blogged on this month:

Write about a failure in your life (personal or professional) that has lessons. It must be your failure and you must have to take responsibility. But this will be a safe space to discuss our failings and what we can learn from them.

On 9/11/2001, I was in eighth grade.

I got one stolen glance of the towers falling from a TV screen in my homeroom and called my mother, telling her “I want to come home.”

I attended a small, private Catholic middle school in Kansas City, where teachers herded students into rooms without televisions and didn’t answer questions about what was going on. Instead, they unsuccessfully tried to redirect our attention onto an upcoming biology test.

When I got home and situated myself in front of the television my family’s living room, I was disappointed by what I saw and heard.  I felt like no one on television knew more than I did. The reports, while full of emotion that helped me understand the magnitude of what had happened that day, couldn’t answer my questions. Sure, there were fragments of stories that emerged, but it wasn’t enough.

I was a 13-year-old girl. I couldn’t go to war. I couldn’t go to New York.  But I could write.

I recently re-read my journal entries from the weeks following Sept. 11. They reflect fear and uncertainty and powerlessness, despite the fact that I had no family members or friends directly impacted by the events of that day. But those entries also reflected a resolve to do something about the lack of information available if I could.

The next year, I signed up for my high school’s journalism class and joined the staff of my student newspaper. There, I threw myself head-long into political reporting. I haven’t looked back since.

I purposely haven’t written or talked much about how 9/11 informed my decision to become a journalist because, as someone growing up in this generation, it seemed a bit unoriginal. Of course 9/11 would factor into my decision to become a reporter – it remains the largest media event of my lifetime.

But I’m reminded today of why I am where I am.

Ten years later, I cover national politics and live in Washington D.C.. I’m on the other side of the equation.  I’m one of the people who starts to make decisions about what information goes out and in what form it is best distributed.  In 2001, I didn’t have a computer in my house.  Today, I’m almost never without at least one smart phone.

I now know of the challenges that come from reporting a massive event. I dropped everything to file a story for POLITICO the day Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was shot. And last night, I stayed awake well into the early morning hours, looking for new angles as the story of Osama bin Laden’s death played out on social media.

It isn’t easy. In fact, it’s excruciatingly difficult. I’m fortunate to work with great editors who have to make the tough choices in situations such as these.  But, at the same time, even writing a few sentences on my own Twitter account proves a struggle because I want to get it right.

People depend on journalists to give them what they can’t get themselves.  They know what they feel, but they don’t have the outside context that we provide.  We give them the pieces they will later put together in their living rooms, at their dinner tables or in the bars with their friends or in their cars listening to public radio.

That matters.

Sound familiar? That’s because we did it already in 2009.  In between the two California stops, the organization will have scheduled two East Coast conference locations (Washington D.C. and Boston).

When does this game of bi-coastal ping-pong stop?

There’s this big expanse of land between California and Boston that includes a handful of the top journalism colleges and universities (Northwestern, Missouri, Texas, Kansas) yet ONA has never held a conference in the Midwest or the South.

To that end, one of the two sessions I’ve pitched for ONA11 is to create a place for non-coastal journalists to talk journalism and innovation and how we can better market what the rest of the country has to offer.

But beyond my personal qualms with some of the movers and shakers in our industry, there’s also a financial point to this argument: San Francisco (twice!), Washington D.C. (twice!) and Boston aren’t inexpensive cities.  At a time when many journalists are being laid off, shouldn’t organizations be a little bit more budget-friendly when they plan events?

I think it’s so cool that the Asian American Journalists Association is headed to Detroit this summer. It’s a new venue for the organization in a very neat city that’s looking to rebuild.  I must admit, I’m tempted to attend just because it offers something new.

I attended ONA09 during my final semester of college and it was one of the best experiences I’ve had, but I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t a reach to be able to afford it.  In fact, the majority of the conference expenses went on a credit card to be paid off along with college loans and moving experiences. It concerns me to think that location and pricing could be a turn-off for young journalists attempting to launch their careers.

After talking with a few close friends, I came to the conclusion that I’m not without good cause. But, instead of launching into a Twitter/bloggy tirade, I decided to approach ONA’s leaders with some of my concerns.

Don’t get me wrong, I still think it’s a fabulous organization, but I believe the coastal bias is getting old and is stymieing our efforts to grow a diverse membership.

Here’s an excerpt from the letter I wrote to ONA executive director Jane McDonnell board president Christine Montgomery.  Normally, letter-writing campaigns aren’t my cup of tea, but I feel like people don’t have the right to complain about a practice if they haven’t made an effort to open a dialog.  No response yet, but it’s only Monday.

I’m writing to express my extreme disappointment at the Online News Association for the repeated failure to look outside of coastal cities for conference sites and the selection of San Francisco as the 2012 conference site.

It reinforces the geographic bias in this industry that innovative journalism and media activities are confined to the East and West Coasts, a belief that is both appalling and factually incorrect.

At a time when many in our industry grapple with grave budget challenges, it is fiscally irresponsible to continue to hold conferences in such expensive locales, making the experience out of reach for many individuals that might like to attend, learn and share in the ONA network.

I’ll update you guys if I get a response, but I also have a question:

What’s your ideal conference locale? Not ideal is in “super-cute place I’d like to go because it’s sunny and I really need a vacation (because don’t we all?)” Dream as in location that offers the perfect mix of amenities that would make you likely to go there.

UPDATE: I just received a response from ONA’s Christine Montgomery:

Hi, Juana -

We made a decision a few years ago to alternate the ONA conference each year on the East and West coasts to accommodate our growing international membership, as well as make it easy for all to fly in and out of a major hub. But yes, while flights are comparable, the trade-off is higher hotel fees in big cities. We try to negotiate the best rates for our members, but there’s not doubt, attending this conference is going to cost $1000 +/-.

We try to mitigate some of that with regional events, and have targeted towns where major media shops have downsized or closed down altogether, so that we can offer (in these cases) free training to journalists who might need it most.

But know that Jane and I will report your concerns to the Board, and talk about whether we are doing all we can to make the conference accessible to all of our members (or potential members).

As someone who has spent may years working in small towns, I totally agree: there is great, innovative journalism happening all over the country!

Look forward to meting in person -
Christine

I don’t get a lot of time to myself, save an hour-long commute to POLITICO’s Rosslyn offices, but I do try to read as much as I can. It’s probably my only honest-to-God hobby.

Here are some of my favorite recent reads, a mix of books and blogs and posts. Some of them are nerdy, some of them are guilty pleasures but all of them have managed to stick with me.  I’ll be traveling to Missouri at the end of March, so I’m in need of some new material for my Kindle.

Have you read something fabulous, jarring or just totally out there crazy recently? Tweet at me or drop a line in the comments. I’m always looking for suggestions.

Books & Blogs:

1. Thought Catalog: Thought Catalog is the only place (so far) I’ll read those ‘on being a 20-something’ pieces from without wanting to throw my computer against a wall.  If you’ve never visited the site and love good, thought-provoking reading, it’s a must. Start with “You Should Date an Illiterate Girl,” if only because it’s so damn quotable.
2. Son of Bold Venture: I’m one of those girls that takes Esquire over Cosmo, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that I also read the writers’ efforts outside the magazine. Chris Jones’ blog is a great read every day, but merits inclusion for his post on Lara Logan alone (a topic I am still unable to write about). So, read “Lara Logan’s Math,” then read everything else. Twice.
3. The Science of Single: Disclaimer, I am happily taken, but this book is a great anthropological study on dating. Set in Washington, the author turns the idea of finding a mate into a scientific study.  I’m currently reading this one a second time.
4. The Awakening: By no means new, but still a favorite. Kate Chopin’s period piece is set in New Orleans and remains a controversial read today because of the take on women’s liberation.
5. The Reason for God, Belief in an Age of Skepticism: Great read, no matter what God you do or don’t worship, plural or singular. It was the source of too many arguments at my house which might be why I love it.
6. Just Call Her: A blog where the title says it all. And you really should just get over it and call her already.

Great stories:

1. “Since beating that left student in coma, his father has kept a constant vigil” – Paul Schwartzman, The Washington Post
2. “Good days at Ground Zero” – Scott Raab, Esquire
3. “Rahm Emanuel unleashed: Fake feed a Twitter hit” – Molly Ball, POLITICO
4. “Believeland” – Wright Thompson, ESPN (Note: I hate the Cavs and everything about Ohio, but this story is one of the ones that gets into your skin.)
5. “Jeff Smith: The Idealist” – Jason Zengerle, The New Republic
6. “Payday” – Susan Orlean, The New Yorker. (Quoted: “I think the only real battle is between the challenge of getting people to read and the fact that many other pastimes are easier, quicker, and more passive than reading”)
7. “Look at me!: A writer’s search for journalism in the age of branding” – Maureen Tkacik
8. “Thanksgivings for single dads” – Chris Jones, Esquire

To talk about improving government transparency, I have to tell you a story about my grandma.

She lives in one of Kansas City’s roughest zip codes and her income clocks in at below the poverty line. She is the caretaker for her son, a disabled vet diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic. And though she never graduated from high school, she reads every single article I write.

This was especially cool when I was living in Kansas City because the issues I wrote about intersected so directly with her life. So every time my grandma would read a story, she’d ask me questions.

As I wrote more, graduated from college and took on my first full-time job, my grandma became the bar for whether a story had been told well. If she didn’t get why it mattered or why she should care, I was doing something wrong.

People like my grandma don’t really care about the big picture, they care about journalism on a very granular level – how it impacts their block, zip code or household, instead of a wide-reaching story about a national trend. So write your big story with the byline that can lead A1, but give them the tools to engage at the level they need, too.

Here are some examples of valuable ways political reporters can increase access to information and add more news sources to the ecosystem:

• Link out: While most news organizations have gotten out of the habit of only linking internally, don’t be afraid to link out to primary source documents that inform your reporting. If you’re covering the state legislature, you should at minimum link to the bill you’re covering and any other relevant documents (fiscal notes, perhaps) when you report.
• Share your paper trail: If you complete an open records request and report a story using those records, upload the documents on to your news organizations’ servers and share that information with your audience.
• Sometimes, it doesn’t need a byline: We’re all married to the idea that we have to get credit for everything we do. But sometimes, you don’t need to write a story to inform readers. One of the most powerful pieces of work I completed didn’t have my name attached to it. I wrote a story about food deserts in Kansas City for the now-defunct hyperlocal site KC FreePress. To further illustrate the point, I created a Google Map of grocery stores in the areas my story focused on, and linked out to that on Twitter. It drove the point home for our audience more than any narrative could.

This post is part of the January Carnival of Journalism. Here’s the topic we all blogged on this month:

Considering your unique circumstances what steps can be taken to increase the number of news sources?  This wording is not chosen lightly. The question is how to increase the sources of news. This does not necessarily mean how do we increase the number of news organizations, although that can be an answer. Being a source of news and being a news organization are distinct. An individual posting a twitpic of a car crash with the hashtag #yourcity is a source of news even though he/she is not a news organization.