Final 'New California Media' Awards Show Spotlights Ethnic Media

"The award winners kept mentioning 'New America Media,'" says executive director Sandy Close, "as if the name magnified all of us in the room by putting us on the national stage."

The ceremony celebrates ethnic media of all stripes. Television, print, radio and Internet news organizations send in entries on a multitude of topics, including health care, investigative reporting, youth voices and international affairs. Many of the reports revolve around immigrants' tales of making it, or not, in their new country.

Winners told stories ranging from an underground economy of cars sold to illegal immigrants to profiles of rabbis and priests working here and abroad. The capacity crowd in the Fairmont Hotel ballroom included media, advertisers, community members and politicians, from Madison Nguyen, the newly elected San Jose City Councilmember and "highest ranking Vietnamese in the country," according to her friend and award winner Grace E. Jang, of KoreAm Journal, a Korean-American magazine, to Central Valley media heads Hardy Brown, of Black Voice news, and Rick Rodriguez of the Sacramento Bee.

The presentation and organization behind it, says Rep. Mike Honda, Democratic congressman from the South Bay, recognizes people who most Americans know little about. "People like Ang Lee," he says, director of the gay cowboy love story film "Brokeback Mountain," "have not gotten enough coverage."

The role of journalists, Honda says, as "rabble rousers," is important to raise questions on topics Americans seldom consider. He points to former Army Chaplain Capt. James Yee, a speaker at the event, as one example.

Read More