The California Local News Fellowship this week announced its inaugural class of 39 California Local News Fellows in 37 newsrooms in California.
The program is run by the School of Journalism at UC Berkeley.
Among the fellows is Jia Jung, a UC Berkeley, UC San Diego and Columbia School of Journalism graduate with Master’s Degrees in journalism and international affairs and an undergraduate degree in philosophy.
She will be joining Asian American Media Inc. and AsAmNews in September as a reporter covering underrepresented groups within the AAPI community.
Jung is trilingual in English, Korean and Spanish. She is also conversant in Marshallese which she used during the year she spent on the Marshall Islands.
“I went to Marshall Islands to be a volunteer teacher,” said Jung. “After I came back I accidentally did everything other than journalism with the thought that writing on the side would be enough. It wasn’t until 2016 that a cold pitch led to a reporting job in Arkansas immersing with climate change refugees from the Marshall Islands.”
Since then she has reported for a diverse group of news outlets ranging from The World from PRX to Vice to the Korea Times.
She recently completed a 10-minute mini-doc on Filipina marriage migrants in Korea.
“It has taken my whole life to develop an unwavering commitment to serving Asian, Pacific Islander, and Indigenous people with journalism, to balance our sheer lack of numbers in this country and its newsroom mastheads. To be clear,
I do not consider other underserved communities to be less important or less worthy of attention,” wrote Jung on her application.
AsAmNews founder & executive editor Randall Yip says he is ecstatic the fellowship accepted Asian American Media Inc and AsAmNews into the program and matched the news site up with Jung.
“Her values, goals and mission align very well with our mission-to drive the narrative about Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, showcasing all that makes AAPIs American,” said Yip. “We look forward to Jung improving our coverage of the Pacific Islander, Hmong, Pakistani and other underrepresented communities.”
California Governor Gavin Newsom funded and signed into law The California Local News Fellowship last year with a $25 million appropriation. The bill led by State Sen Steven Glazer (D-Contra Costa County) is meant to address the problems facing community news in California and across the country.
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