Will you join me in supporting JAWS?

Prefer to send a check? Make it out to JAWS and send it to 2885 Sanford Ave. SW #29226, Grandville, MI 49418-13342.

Rachel Jones

JAWS Past President & Current Board Member

Why I’m back on the JAWS board

It was 1992. I’d met journalism trailblazer Nancy Woodhull at a conference somewhere – and she urged me to come to JAWS CAMP. (My first reaction was: I ain’t going out in the woods in Montana to integrate the entire state!) And yet I found myself in Montana, hanging out with legends like Nan Robertson and Betsy Wade. 

At one point, Nancy Woodhull turned to me and asked: “What do you think, Rachel?”

That shifted something in me. Women of that caliber were addressing me as a colleague and a peer. In that less formal setting, not a newsroom, I could see that I don’t have to be threatened or intimidated or afraid of being judged. I can move through this world and share my opinion and shape the news. 

Five years later, I was president of JAWS. 

After being away for some time, I’ve again joined the JAWS board and committed myself to JAWS. Because JAWS matters, right now. And JAWS needs our support. 

JAWS matters right now because journalism is under threat. Local news and legacy news are being devastated. It worries me that regional news sources, so central to a vibrant and democratic civic life, are eroding. With that, women’s voices are once again going to take a hit. Disappearing beats and publications will drain opportunities for women to shape the news, to decide what’s worthy of coverage. 

And JAWS matters right now because our country’s efforts toward a racial reckoning are under threat. JAWS and other organizations must show we understand that threat, that we have people of color in leadership, that we see what’s underway. JAWS has had growing pains as we meld the past with the future, but folks like me can help keep JAWS’ original spirit while still moving forward. 

JAWS matters right now because we give so much to women journalists: that sense that we can be in this business as long as we want to be, that our insights matter, that we can achieve, that we are important. We help each other all along the way.

JAWS has given me so much. And so I’m giving back to JAWS. 

Please give back to JAWS, with me. And let’s be the legends we once admired, helping other women step forward in journalism.

Warmly,

Rachel

Joanna Hernandez

JAWS Treasurer

You know JAWS has an ambitious (and necessary!) goal of raising $30,000 by year’s end. You’ve already given more than $14,000 to get us there. As your treasurer, deeply involved in our financial sustainability, I am thrilled to announce that a generous anonymous donor has offered to match the next $5,000 that come in. 

That doubles every dollar you give! 

You know why that matters. You’ve heard from our president Angela Greiling Keane, our health reporting mentor Naseem Miller and our DEI leader (and recent JAWS convert) Linda Jue. (Read all their stories below.)

For me, here’s what’s most important: JAWS helped me find my voice. Just being around the powerful women of JAWS – women journalists who are strong, confident, straightforward and loving, women who aren’t afraid to say what’s on their minds – has transformed me. Their example freed me to speak out for what’s right as a DEI leader at a Florida university, where diversity is under attack. 

JAWS makes women in journalism powerful. It brings us together to exchange our knowledge, strength and insight across generations, demographic divisions and corners of the profession. And society needs our voices.

That’s why I’m excited about giving to JAWS right now, as we become a larger incarnation of what we’ve always been. We’re already halfway to our goal – and every dollar you give will be doubled, bringing us home!

If you haven’t given already, can you join me in making your year-end, tax-deductible donation to JAWS now – or ask friends and family to give in your name?

Thank you a million times over for building JAWS –

Warmly,

Joanna

Linda Jue

JAWS Board Member and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee Chair

I didn’t feel welcome at my first JAWS CAMP. Or my second or third. But I’m passionately invested in JAWS now – because we’re going to change our profession. 

Of course I’m going to ask you to give. We have an ambitious – and urgent – goal of raising $30,000 from our members by year’s end. (Fortunately, we’re already nearly half the way there – but more on that later.)

But first let me explain how I got so excited about our work to make journalism better for all women – our journalists, our audiences, our country, and our world.

When I first came to JAWS, I had been leading innovative investigative and other reporting projects at new journalism nonprofits long before 501(c)(3)s were a glint in our profession’s eye. JAWS seemed like an old girls’ network for those nestled primarily in the larger, legacy media culture. That didn’t include me (and not because of race). 

Then, after 2018, I was reluctantly drafted onto the board to build up JAWS’ diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts, one of my primary areas of expertise. Board member E.J. Graff and president Mira Lowe persuaded me that JAWS was ready to transform into a bigger and more truly inclusive women’s journalism association.

In turn, I created a committee of advisors, many of whom have earned high professional esteem for their own work and insights on DEI in journalism. The DEI Committee served as my braintrust while I worked with the board to create a well-thought-out strategy to seamlessly embed DEI into JAWS’ restructuring as an association that serves the interests of all women journalists.

The board responded enthusiastically to our vision. Together, the board, staff – and you, JAWS members – are building an organization that can expand the JAWS embrace – while also advocating for all women in journalism. 

I haven’t felt this kind of sisterhood for a long time. 

In this role, I’ve found the kinship that so many told me about but I had missed. We’re preserving, growing, and extending all the warmth and mentoring and advice we’ve loved about JAWS to far more women. We are helping JAWS institutionalize its advocacy for women in journalism, becoming a full partner with other journalism affinity organizations. We’re infusing real DEI in everything we do – on race, of course, but also every axis we can find. We’re aiming to train all JAWS members in being a positive force in our profession and advocating as we can. 

But we need your help. We need staffing, computer resources, accounting, website support, and so much more. We need CAMP and fellowships and webinars. We need each other. 

No other organization represents and advocates for women in journalism. The younger, more diverse women who need and want JAWS have to adapt to an industry where the rug was pulled out from under them. Women are still disproportionately locked out of leadership posts. Our industry is still bedeviled by sexism, racism, pay inequity, and so much more. JAWS is acutely needed – right now. 

Please join me in helping to build up JAWS. Please give – whether that’s $5 or $50 or $500, once or monthly or by asking friends to give in your name. We’re grateful to the dozens of women who’ve given $13,288 in our year-end campaign. That means we only have $16,712 to go!

Together, as JAWS, we can transform our workplaces and our profession. We can’t go to large funders unless we can show that our members are all in. Are you in?

In sisterhood,

Linda

Naseem Miller

JAWS Health Journalism Fellowship Mentor

I got hooked on JAWS the very first time I attended CAMP in Austin, 2022. CAMP was amazing, and unlike any other conference I’d been to: deeply educational while also supportive, relaxed and incredibly inclusive. Of course I came back – and felt just the same way in Chicago, where I gave and got advice on the issues challenging women in journalism, especially right now. 

So I am delighted to serve as one of two mentors in JAWS’ health journalism fellowship – helping other women navigate the same struggles and challenges I’ve faced. Even better, I’ve adopted my own JAWS mentor, Liz Seegert, who has become such a great sounding board, and a voice of reason during challenging moments. 

I wish I’d had JAWS earlier in my career. I would have been so grateful for what I’m getting now from JAWS: mentorship, support, friendships, connections! All that would have made such a big difference at times when I felt alone and isolated. Young women – and all of us – so deeply need JAWS and our annual gathering. 

That’s especially true right now, with journalism in turmoil, with gender and racial harassment online (and off!). I want all women journalists to know that JAWS has their backs. Our profession (and our country!) need women to cover the issues faced by our half of the population. And women journalists need our inclusive community to learn how to protect ourselves and each other and to stay resilient when under attack. 

Of course I’m making a year-end donation to JAWS. Please join me in giving, and help us meet our ambitious goal of raising $30,000 by year’s end. (After Giving Tuesday, we’re already $9,200 of the way there!) Maybe you can make a one-time gift to honor a mentor. Maybe you can give monthly (that helps a lot!). Whatever you can give, large or small, JAWS will use it wisely. 

I believe in our mission to support, advance and advocate for women in journalism. If you do too – if you’ve felt the JAWS magic – help spread JAWS support to many more. 

See you at the next CAMP.

Yours,

Naseem

Angela Greiling Keane

JAWS President

A little more than a decade ago, because of JAWS, I doubled my paycheck – and caught up to a man’s salary.

As a Gen X reporter, I truly believed that the pioneering women who’d come before me had fixed the wage gap. Then I found out that a man hired the same time as I was hired, with completely equivalent credentials and experience, was making twice what I was making. I was stunned. And I had no idea what to do about it.

Fortunately, just a week or so later, I was going to CAMP. I spent every minute there sharing my conundrum with wise JAWS women including Dawn Garcia, asking for advice. They helped me see how to have some tough conversations in the newsroom when I got back to work. I largely got it fixed. I have never let that happen again. And I keep my experience in mind when hiring and paying other women.

That’s why I’m now your JAWS president. I am determined to pay that support forward so that every woman in journalism gets treated fairly. Our elders made enormous progress. But in 2023, we still desperately need JAWS to advocate for women (all of us!) in journalism: calling out pay disparity, getting more women into newsroom leadership, exposing the quiet harassment online and in person that disproportionately affects women. And all that goes triple for women of color, immigrant women, and other disfavored groups.

We have a lot of initiatives underway. You’ll hear more as the months go on. But to get anything done, we need funds. As a nonprofit, JAWS depends on donations. JAWS needs your help to advocate for women in journalism – and to keep supporting each other behind the scenes.

Anything you can afford to give will help (especially if you can give monthly!). Only you know if you can give $25, $25/month, or $2,500. Or maybe you could ask for donations to JAWS in lieu of gifts for your birthday, the holidays or whatever you celebrate.

Please give what you can. Let’s keep JAWS alive for the next wave of young women journalists — and for each other.

Yours in journalism,

Angela