FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 27, 2021
NAHJ National Board of Directors Announces New Interim Executive Director
(Washington, D.C.) – The National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ) has selected educator, journalist, and nonprofit leader Zita Arocha as its interim executive director. Arocha will take the helm on June 2, succeeding Alberto B. Mendoza, who announced his departure in late April to be the new managing director of the John S. Knight Journalism Fellowships at Stanford. For nearly six years, Mendoza served as head of the journalism nonprofit.
Arocha worked for more than a dozen years as a reporter for The Washington Post, the Miami Herald, The Miami News and the Tampa Times. This is not Arocha’s first time to serve in the NAHJ role. The Cuban-born Arocha first served as the NAHJ executive director in 1993 and helped organize the joint Unity, Journalists of Color conference in Atlanta in 1994. After departing NAHJ in 1996, she led training efforts for the Freedom Forum’s Chips Quinn Scholars program to prepare young journalists of color for news media careers.
Over the last 20 years, she taught journalism at the University of Texas El Paso where she excelled as an educator, founding the student-produced web magazine Borderzine about border life and culture, a training initiative for journalism professors from Hispanic Serving Institutions and an annual high school journalism workshop. After she retired from UTEP in 2019, she was awarded the title of emeritus professor. She was inducted into the NAHJ Hall of Fame in 2016 at the NABJ/NAHJ Conference in Washington, DC.
“Zita’s convivial style, practicality, and keenness for leveraging the journalism community to help mobilize support for others have earned her the esteem of the NAHJ’s staff, board, and members,” said NAHJ Board President Nora Lopez. “We are excited to work with Zita as our new interim executive director, and I am confident that under her leadership NAHJ will be in the best of hands as the national board searches for a permanent director. ”
“I appreciate the board’s trust in me and am honored to once again serve an organization whose core mission is to create a diverse news force,” Arocha said. “Thanks to the tireless work of Alberto, we can move forward and continue to provide the excellent services and programs our members deserve.” As interim executive director, Arocha will work closely with staff and the NAHJ Board to ensure that the organization can adapt to serve members and industry professionals. One of her first duties as director will be to oversee the NAHJ International Training Conference and Career Fair, which will be its biggest event of the year, held virtually from June 16 – July 17, 2021.
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About the NAHJ
The National Association of Hispanic Journalists is the largest organization of Latino journalists in the United States and dedicated to the recognition and professional advancement of Hispanics in the news industry. The mission of NAHJ is to increase the number of Latinos in the newsrooms and to work toward fair and accurate representation of Latinos in the news media. Established in April 1984, NAHJ created a national voice and unified vision for all Hispanic journalists. NAHJ has over 3,300 members, including working journalists, journalism students, other media-related professionals, and journalism educators. For more information please visit NAHJ.org or follow on Twitter @NAHJ.
Media Contact:
BA Snyder
Veritas Group for NAHJ
512.630.6337
BA@TheVeritasWay.com