Steven A. Chin

Principal, MKmedia
New Media Specialist, Maynard Institute for Journalism Education
NAMME Catalyst Award-New Media

At the intersection where diversity, journalism and new media converge, you will find Steven Chin. His career, centered at this crossroads, is as intricate as the websites he designs and launches into cyberspace. He is a true pioneer: giving voice and presence to Asian Americans in this new format. Addressing an NAA Diversity Committee meeting in 1996, Chin shares his views on the impact of the new media wave on traditional journalism. Chin said, "The new media is flattening things out, so that you have not only newspapers and TV operating on the same playing field, but you have media companies and small niche companies operating on the same playing field, as well as Microsoft or Reebok providing news. Those are going to be big issues."

And helping to keep diversity in the mix as those big issues get sorted out is where Chin wants to be. Chin's venture into new media entrepreneurship started when he co-founded Channel A, the first commercial Asian American website. "But just as important," says Bruce Koon, executive news editor, Knight Ridder Digital and a friend, "it became an important training ground for young Asian American journalists and producers." The experience at Channel A gave these staff members the skills to move to other new media organizations, including other journalism institutions. Chin, says Koon, is an enabler who connects with others who have a vision for diversity and helps them achieve success.

With his current venture as president of MKmedia, a website design and Internet consulting firm, he is assisting organizations that are addressing diversity issues in media and education. Past MKmedia clients include PBS' P.O.V/Television Race initiative and Latino Link as well as non-profit educational and civil rights organizations including the National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium, Asian Pacific Fund, and National Asian American Telecommunications Association.

Far ahead of many, Chin understood, all too clearly, the impact of this new technology on the profession of journalism. In 1996, he said, "There are two labor pools--the traditional journalist who doesn't have the coding skills or technical skills and the understanding of the internet and there are the kids coming out of college who have all this technical expertise. What I want is that hybrid, somebody I can count on to edit the free-lance stories when they come in, apply journalistic standards to them, but also code it. That is where training has to happen because that is the 'new' journalist."

This wisdom led to the development of NAA's New Media Fellowship Program where individuals were given the training needed to move into new media departments or better leverage the new technology in their current jobs. Providing the new media training ground for the next generation of Asian American leaders is more than a passing interest of Chin's. Each year Steven coordinates the AAJA Student New Media Project at the convention of the Asian American Journalists Association, also a MKmedia client. Now in its fifth year, students become immersed in a one-week multimedia journalism training program and get hands-on experience using new technology and the Internet as a medium.

Tran Ha, a copy editor with the Chicago Tribune's Red Eye and also a mentor for AAJA's Student New Media Project, joined the project when Chin hired her two years ago. "Steve is very devoted to AAJA ," says Ha, "and he is committed to giving students a chance to learn as much as possible about journalism as well as the journalistic opportunities that are available beyond print and broadcast."

Besides learning basic writing and editing skills, students also get the chance to try something new, from shooting and editing videos or photos to working with audio. They are exposed to opportunities to tell a story in a multimedia way and learn to apply their journalistic skills to create a multi-dimensional, multi-media product. Chin shows them they don't have to be pidgeon-holed into being just reporters, editors or photographers because they can do it all.

Ha adds that this project is a grueling commitment, "Yet Steve returns year after year, because he wants to make sure someone gives these students a chance to learn about multimedia."

In 2001, MKmedia designed the Diversity News Network, a collection of websites that serves a broad community of students of color. One of the websites is reznet, an online newspaper for tribal college journalism students. Denny McAuliffe, founder of reznet, says, "If not for Steve Chin, I don't know where reznet would be."

Not only is reznet a cyber-community where Native American students and future journalists can share and communicate, they are also encouraged to enter the field of journalism. At reznet, students write their own stories about issues that affect them on the reservations. And, according to web tracking numbers, these students are indeed gravitating to this special online community. Reznet today gets on average 100,000 page requests per month and 300,000 hits per month.

"We know that the tribal colleges and reservation high schools are reading reznet," said McAuliffe. Chin, whose MKedia designed reznet, is its managing editor and also teaches its students a course in new media. The students learn how to design a website and are introduced to audio and video features that can be incorporated into their websites. Before becoming a new media entrepreneur, Chin worked at the San Francisco Examiner and was an active participant in the paper's minority affairs committee, then known as the Committee for the Better Future of Molly.

The committee was named after the daughter of staff member Annie Nakao. "Steve was good to have on our side," said Sally Lehrman, a longtime friend and Examiner colleague at that time, "because the editors respected his work as a journalist."

While at the Examiner, Chin created the first fulltime Asian American community beat, which was also first for the newspaper industry. "He built relationships with the community and developed stories that the editors were not even aware existed," adds Lehrman. His articles often brought to the surface pressing issues, from immigration to the cultural gap, which affected the day-to-day lives of Asian Americans living in San Francisco. While covering City Hall, he also integrated stories about the impact and influence of the Bay area's Asian Americans on city government.

By connecting with others who have a vision for diversity and helping them achieve success, Chin is creating places where diversity and community come together.