Cheung faces a write-in challenge for AAJA presidency

AAJA President Paul Cheung’s once-uncontested race for president picked up a challenger this week as the national convention got underway.

Longtime AAJA member and award-winning photographer Corky Lee is spearheading an effort to make former vice president for print Janet Cho a write-in candidate against Cheung. Cho lost to Cheung in the 2012 election for president.

Lee said he’s pushing for Cho, a business reporter for the (Cleveland) Plain Dealer, as a response to eliminating photos from this year’s silent auction. In years past, photographers have donated their work to be auctioned off with other items to raise money for AAJA student programs.

“It’s more of a protest,” Lee said, “a protest for lacking compassion on the part of [the] national office and the president to work with people on silent auction and people in broadcast.”

Cheung didn’t criticize Cho’s budding campaign, going so far as to say he’s glad someone else is interested in leading. But he pointed out that convention decisions aren’t his alone. The decision to remove photos from the silent auction — as well as everything from panel topics to speakers to food — was left up to a group of leaders from throughout the organization.

But, Cheung said, the group decided against auctioning photographs because the cost of preparing that part of the sale – including framing and matting the art, plus shipping it — outweighs the returns. Last year, photos brought in only $300. Everything else sold at the auction brought in more than $8,000.

“It is purely a business,” Cheung said. “Photography is valuable, but there are different ways to showcase our work than silent auction. We don’t sell stories and we don’t showcase video clips.”

Cho is not in Washington for the convention but said via email she was “surprised and flattered” by the nomination for president. She is disappointed in the decision to remove photos from the auction.

“I’m actually more concerned about members’ dissatisfaction with the current leadership and their perceptions that AAJA is not serving their needs than I am about my candidacy,” Cho said. “AAJA has been and should always be about putting its members first.”

Lee attributes low photo revenue to scheduling, saying the silent auction should be held the night of the gala, when corporate executives could place higher bids. He said photos netted $6,000 the last time the auction and gala coincided.

Voting ends Friday at noon.

AAJA bylaws don’t specify how write-in candidacies are handled. The rules say the nomination period for officers was June 4 to 18.

Two others are running unopposed for national offices, which have two-year terms. They are incumbent Niala Boodhoo for vice president of broadcast and Shawn Nicole Wong for treasurer.

Election results will be announced at Saturday’s gala.

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National Vice President for Broadcast Candidate: Niala Boodhoo on Thursday, August 14, 2014. (Kijin Higashibaba/AAJA VOICES)

National Treasurer Candidate: Shawn Nicole Wong on Wednesday, August 13, 2014. (Melissah Yang/AAJA VOICES)