nwasianweekly.com
July 14,
2007
Image
provided by KIRO-TV
Can
you find Publisher Assunta Ng in this photo? As one of only three
people with cameras at a Seattle reception for the king and queen
of Spain in 2004, Ng took many photos for other people. The closest
she got to a photo with Queen Sofia was at this moment.
Tough
job becomes plum job after 25 years
By Assunta Ng
Northwest Asian Weekly
Editor’s note: This is part 10 in a continuing series by the publisher of the Northwest Asian Weekly and Seattle Chinese Post. The newspapers are celebrating their 25th anniversary this year.
Grab a copy of the Northwest Asian Weekly — what you don’t see are the outrageous acts happening behind the scenes.
Can you imagine that we saved innocent boys from prison because the prosecutor’s office agreed with our editorial and dropped all charges against the defense?
One day over lunch, I helped a non-profit agency land a $250,000 grant before the corporation cut its funding of all capital campaigns.
How about a phone call from a mainstream newspaper’s assistant editorial editor telling me that I was right all along?
Oh yes, we predict your fortunes every week too. When someone confronted me about our astrology column, I turned into a scaredy cat.
An article by one of our writers connected her to a book deal!
Several years ago, I actually hired a private detective to find out who was stealing the Northwest Asian Weekly from newspaper racks. Astonishingly, it was us who caught the guilty parties red-handed.
I am usually courteous to fellow media. I provide interviews and help them find other sources, but one day, I shoved them out of my office. What really happened?
Did you know we bring lovers together too?
No, we don’t have a matchmaking Web site. We don’t even have a classified section for singles like the Seattle Weekly does! How could it be that the Northwest Asian Weekly plays matchmaker when it has had so few singles ads over the past 25 years?
It’s not from ads, but from the content of the paper! The power of information leads to the act of imagination! Isn’t it funny and revealing how readers can read between the lines and interpret information for their own needs?
One time a reader asked whether a guy pictured in the Northwest Asian Weekly was single. She wanted to set him up with a friend. Another time, we profiled a businessman who was recently divorced. He received numerous calls afterwards from several female readers.
To our knowledge, the Northwest Asian Weekly has contributed to four marriages, including that of attorney Kollin Min, who met his wife through us. She was a freelance writer assigned to do a story on him. The rest is history.
That’s the nature of our business: getting surprises every day. Many of them delight us with laughter and tears. Perhaps it’s those interesting and fruitful outcomes of our work that actually help to sustain me as publisher for a quarter of a century. There are more unbelievable acts to share …
Nuts about astrology
A year ago at Uwajimaya, an Asian woman looked dead serious at me and asked, “Are you Assunta Ng?” Fearful that a stranger might scold or slap me about some story we did, I hesitated to say yes.
“Your astrology column is so right (in prediction) that I have to come to get it every week,” she told me.
Wow! I stood there speechless but elated.
I have to confess that our Asian Astrology column is the last thing I would read in the Asian Weekly. Apparently it’s the opposite for many young, old and in-between readers as they flip through the paper.
“Do you write it?” she pressed on.
I wish I had the ability! Thanks to freelance writer Yayoi Winfrey, who approached us with the idea, our astrology column was born in 1999. The truth is, I had thought about such a column long ago, but we never had the manpower to do it. Although she started the column, she has since moved on to other jobs. Sun Lee Chang is the pen name of our current astrology writer. Sorry, we won’t reveal the true identity, or even the gender.
I never know how readers react to the content in our paper, but I am ecstatic if I learn they have found a part of the paper that belongs to them. Thank you, readers, for sharing your input with us.
Free food
One staffer blamed me for adding five pounds to his body after working at the Asian Weekly for barely a year. Why blame me and not the fact that we are surrounded by some of the best Asian restaurants in town?
Each year we are invited to attend more than 100 free meals in the community. This doesn’t include the 10 events we host ourselves. Just in the week of June 18, I went to four community events. Among them was a juicy steak dinner that I devoured completely. That’s 600 calories just in the meat!
Ask my staff what’s fun for them. Birthdays, several would reply.
Food and money produce magic together, at least at our office. Each birthday boy and girl, part-time as well as full-time employees, receives a red envelope with money inside and a cake of their choice from a bakery in the International District. They have their choice of more than 20 flavors, including fresh fruit, chocolate and Asian- and European-style. We all sing “Happy Birthday” together before the honoree makes a wish and cuts the cake. Occasionally some of my staff members dream of a chocolate mousse cheesecake or ice-cream cake; when that happens, we venture outside of the I.D. for a mouth-watering dessert.
Birthday cakes for our 10 part-time staffers also? If a little celebration and some cash can lighten up the stresses of our days, then why not?
How many bosses help employees celebrate their birthdays, one young person on our staff wondered.
“You won’t find any!” responded an older staffer.
Frequently, friends like Jimmy Locke, father of former Gov. Gary Locke, drop by with homemade brownies or freshly picked fruits. Many in my staff qualify to be “Iron Chefs,” often preparing delicious goodies for their colleagues. There are always some munchies in the back room of our office, especially on Wednesday, the day we go to press.
I have all kinds of excuses to treat my employees to Asian restaurants, not just during Christmas, Lunar New Year, Mid-Autumn Festival and Thanksgiving. When I win an award or score a big advertisement, I hand my employees money and a pleasurable meal. When my people win prizes from the Society of Professional Journalists and the Washington Newspaper Publishers Association, I reward them with $50 for each one.
Chinatown is my chef
For 25 years, I have faulted the I.D. for turning me from a competent cook to a lousy, lazy one.
The I.D. has been my kitchen. It gives me many opportunities to organize potlucks and events. For those like me who don’t have time, Chinatown restaurants are our secret weapons. For our three-week Summer Youth Leadership Program, we take about 45 students to a different restaurant in the I.D. every day. Thanks to all the sponsors who support our events, we raised enough funds in the previous year to cover this year’s leadership program expenses. This summer, the students are being treated to 12 diverse restaurants in the area.
The program helps students who have misconceptions about safety in Chinatown. It also helps them understand the neighborhood’s role in the history of the Asian community. Being here for three weeks helps them gain positive experiences and perspectives about our community.
In case you were wondering: Do we get freebies from restaurants? Absolutely not. I always pay for the entire meal. Many restaurant owners are hospitable, but I insist on paying so that I can write about the restaurant freely, without being obligated to praise them. It’s awesome that I can afford to act like the big boys — the mainstream media — occasionally.
Meeting extraordinary people
The Asian Weekly’s office sometimes looks like Hollywood. Earlier this year, Olympic gold medalist Apolo Ohno and his father startled us when they made an unexpected visit.
On another day, “Apprentice” runner-up James Sun came by to work with us on a script he would be using as master of ceremonies at one of our events.
Several years ago, Amy Tan, of “The Joy Luck Club,” came in to talk about her book. Movie star Rosaline Chao arrived to promote her movie. And former Gov. Locke was in our office to serve as a judge for the Asian American Living Pioneer Award. Christine Gregoire stepped foot into our office twice — before and after she was elected governor.
Last year,
Chinese President Hu Jintao visited Seattle, bringing many top-notch
TV journalists from Asia. They all borrowed the Northwest Asian Weekly’s
office to interview local Chinese American leaders. Our office front
was broadcast in Hong Kong, China and Macao.
Over the years, we have spotlighted many celebrities in the Asian Weekly.
That’s fun for our staff, including the interns, who appreciate
the opportunities to interview them.
Sneaking in cameras
Count the number of heads of state I ha
ve met over the years. Can you believe it’s more than 20? I have
attended events for former Russian President Boris Yeltsin, American
presidents, Asian presidents and prime ministers, including those of
Japan, Korea, the Philippines, Vietnam, China and Taiwan, and even shaken
quite a few of their hands. In some cases, I was invited not as a journalist,
but as a community leader. It doesn’t matter what gets me in, as
long as it opens doors for me to cover the event for our readers.
Meeting “royal highnesses” is unusual, and we are fortunate
to have had the opportunity to greet them. My husband took pictures of
Queen Elizabeth II when she was in Seattle. I encountered the sultan
of Brunei during the Asia Pacific Economic Conference in 1993 at the
Seattle Asian Art Museum.
In 2004, it was the king and queen of Spain at the Sheraton Seattle Hotel
and Towers. Although cameras were not allowed, I was among three people
who snuck in their cameras. I was in high demand by the 300-plus Spanish
immigrants who wanted to have pictures taken with the royal couple. Of
course, I missed my own chance at being photographed with the king or
queen.
No security guards ever stopped me from taking pictures. Why would they, knowing what an important occasion it was for the close-knit Spanish community! What joy I brought to these people when I gave them their photos with the royals. To have contributed to their memories makes my job worthwhile, even though these folks are unlikely to become my advertisers or readers.
Everyone has fun
Providing fun experiences for my people has been my goal. When the Northwest Asian Weekly Building held its grand opening in 2002, all of my full-time staff, my sons and my 77-year-old mom participated in the ribbon-cutting ceremony. Afterwards, they told me it was their first ribbon-cutting experience! The Asian Weekly isn’t a big business, but our ability to create milestones for employees, readers and the community gives me immense happiness and satisfaction.
The other day I asked my business partner and husband what aspects of
the job make him content?
His answer shocked me. I had no clue what he considered the best part
of his job.
“Fixing the computers,” he replied. As the chief financial officer of the company, he likes to spend his time fixing old computers! Is it wise use of his time? He enjoys it so much that I never complain. He acquires a lot of knowledge and experience when recycling that “junk.”
It is about
problem solving, he explained. It also helps him in his role as the
newspaper’s
chief technology officer.
While many companies are discarding old computers to make way for new
technology, my husband saves them so he can use the parts to repair other
computers. Do you know what that means to our environment? It reduces
waste in the city! Many companies struggle with their old computers.
Sometimes they have to pay to get rid of them.
In our 5,000-square-foot office, we have 10 printers. Even Microsoft doesn’t have a printer for each one of its employees. Rarely do our workers have to fight to use the printers.
Here is the secret. My husband got them cheap on eBay, even though many of them are very new. All have minor defects that most users don’t know how to fix. But having an in-house person to repair our computers saves us not only time, but also money and unnecessary frustrations.
Creative solutions
Creativity grows out of challenges and problem solving. If we don’t
create, we will die tomorrow. The fun for us is to create more than the
mainstream journalists.
Take my column “Should the Asian Weekly takes sides?” from the May 26 issue, for instance. Associate editor Ann-Marie Stillion always asks what visuals should be used with my articles. In the past, I didn’t appreciate the question. Wasn’t it her job to figure it out? If we were working in the mainstream media, the writers would work separately from the graphics department, partly due to union rules. The reality for a small paper is that we don’t have the luxury to be specialists. That’s what makes our creativity sizzle. Stillion has to lay out the stories as well as illustrate with graphics and photos. Not everyone can do both. How blessed we are to have staff who can multitask.
We all have to be generalists. I often have to develop the visuals for my own articles. To illustrate the complexities that an ethnic community newspaper faces when dealing with the politics of the community, I came up with an image: a tug of war. With precision and grace, my associate editor was able to translate my thoughts into her artwork.
I have heard too many workers complain about being bored or not learning anything new for years. Our worst enemy is stagnancy. Creativity is empowerment and excitement. It stimulates our adrenaline. If the universe is constantly moving and we are adept at change, there is no problem we can’t solve. That’s a wonderful feeling, and if I can instill those values in my staff, then I have succeeded in helping them see life not as a series of unwanted, fearful events, but as a fun journey with a few bumps along the road that can easily be smoothed away.
Next time: What else keeps this publisher going? More fun!
Assunta Ng can be reached at assunta@nwasianweekly.com.
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Northwest Asian Weekly • P.O. Box 3468 • Seattle •
WA 98114
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