New America Media (NAM) was a multimedia ethnic news agency and a coalition of ethnic media. Founded in 1996 by the

nonprofit A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...

Pacific News Service Pacific News Service (PNS) was an American nonprofit alternative news media organization. PNS ceased operations in 2017. The organization was located in Berkeley, California. History PNS was founded in 1969 by historian and sociologist Fr ...

, NAM was headquartered in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17t ...

, with offices in

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world ...

, New York and Washington, D.C. New America Media ceased operations in 2017.

History

New America Media represents the third generation of

ethnic An ethnic group or an ethnicity is a grouping of people A person ( : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established fo ...

news coalitions descending from the

(PNS), founded in 1969. PNS was created by historian

Franz Schurmann Herbert Franz Schurmann (June 21, 1926 – August 20, 2010) was an American sociologist and historian who was best known for his research and writings about Communist China during the Cold War period. Schurmann taught at the University of Cal ...

and journalist

Orville Schell Orville Hickock Schell III (born May 20, 1940) is an American writer, academic, and activist. He is known for his works on China, and is the Arthur Ross Director of the Center on U.S.-China Relations at the Asia Society in New York. He previousl ...

as an

alternative news Alternative media are media sources that differ from established or dominant types of media (such as mainstream media or mass media) in terms of their content, production, or distribution.Downing, John (2001). ''Radical Media''. Thousand Oaks, CA ...

source on the United States’ role in

Indochina Mainland Southeast Asia, also known as the Indochinese Peninsula or Indochina, is the continental portion of Southeast Asia. It lies east of the Indian subcontinent and south of Mainland China and is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the west an ...

during the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...

. After the war ended in 1974, PNS shifted its lens from the Far East to the American West under the guidance of executive editor

Sandy Close Alexandra Close is an American journalist and the founder of Ethnic Media Services. She was the executive director of Pacific News Service from 1974 to 2017 and of New America Media from 1996 to 2017. Early life and education Close received ...

, who would become the organization’s executive director. In 1991, PNS created its first youth media project, YO! Youth Outlook, a multimedia collective of youth-centric news content. YO! published a monthly print magazine, hosted youth forums, speakouts, and blog-a-thons, offered youth journalism internships, and produced live radio and YO!TV broadcasts. YO! Magazine and YO!TV disbanded in 2015. In 1996, PNS became New California Media. NCM maintained PNS’s status as an

source providing support for ethnic media voices, and expanded it with editorial and marketing workshops for ethnic media at the organization’s annual Expo & Awards, dubbed the “ethnic Pulitzers” by ''

The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer ''PBS NewsHour'' is an American evening television news program broadcast on over 350 PBS member stations. It airs seven nights a week, and is known for its in-depth coverage of issues and current events. Anchored by Judy Woodruff, the prog ...

''. NCM also initiated multilingual polling on issues affecting ethnic Californians: the role of ethnic media in their daily lives, the impact of the

September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commer ...

, the progress of American

race relations Race relations is a sociological concept that emerged in Chicago in connection with the work of sociologist Robert E. Park and the Chicago race riot of 1919. Race relations designates a paradigm or field in sociology and a legal concept in th ...

. Also in 1996, Sandy Close co-founded The Beat Within with social worker David Inocencio. The Beat provides a weekly writing and discussion program in

Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Gov ...

juvenile detention In criminal justice systems, a youth detention center, known as a juvenile detention center (JDC),Stahl, Dean, Karen Kerchelich, and Ralph De Sola. ''Abbreviations Dictionary''. CRC Press, 20011202. Retrieved 23 August 2010. , . juvenile de ...

centers, and from those programs, compiles material into a weekly magazine of written and visual work by incarcerated youth. The Beat model has expanded into over 40 Bay Area juvenile halls, with pilot programs in several other regions including Washington, D.C. In 2005, the organization expanded from New California Media into New America Media. The

James Irvine Foundation The James Irvine Foundation is a philanthropic nonprofit organization established to benefit the people of California. The foundation's grantmaking focuses on a California where all low-income workers have the power to advance economically. The fo ...

has called NAM “...the most diverse media organization in the country”, and Sandy Close has been honored with a 1995

MacArthur Fellowship The MacArthur Fellows Program, also known as the MacArthur Fellowship and commonly but unofficially known as the "Genius Grant", is a prize awarded annually by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation typically to between 20 and 30 indi ...

, a 2008 Ashoka Senior Fellowship, the 2010 career award from the

George Polk Awards The George Polk Awards in Journalism are a series of American journalism awards presented annually by Long Island University in New York in the United States. A writer for Idea Lab, a group blog hosted on the website of PBS, described the awa ...

, and the 2012 I. F. Stone Medal from the

Nieman Foundation for Journalism The Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University is the primary journalism institution at Harvard. It was founded in February 1938 as the result of a $1.4 million bequest by Agnes Wahl Nieman, the widow of Lucius W. Nieman, founder of ...

."News Pioneer Sandy Close wins Nieman’s I.F. Stone Medal"
''

Harvard Gazette Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of highe ...

'', November 13, 2012 (In 1996 "she founded New California Media, which subsequently became New America Media (NAM), under the umbrella of Pacific News Service. Today, NAM is the largest editorial and marketing collaboration of ethnic media in the United States.")

Youth programs

NAM’s youth programs include: • YO! Youth Outlook (1991–2015) • The Beat Within • Silicon Valley De-Bug, a multimedia online magazine by and for South Bay Area youth • Roaddawgz, a drop-in space and artistic outlet for homeless San Francisco youth • The kNOw, a Fresno-based youth multimedia program • The California Council for Youth Relations, which seeks to connect at-risk youth with decision and policy makers

References

External links

New America Media
Organization's official website which is now a dead link, but past pages available vi
Wayback Machine:www.newamericamedia.org
{{Authority control 1996 establishments in California News agencies based in the United States Internship programs