Objective co-directors win the 2026 AAJA Award for Leadership in Diversity & Solidarity

The Objective is proud to announce that its co-executive directors — James Salanga and Gabe Schneider — have received the Asian American Journalists Association’s (AAJA) 2026 Award for Leadership in Diversity & Solidarity.

The award recognizes individuals, teams, and organizations that consistently demonstrate a commitment to AAPI diversity, inclusion, equity, and belonging in media. Prior awardees include White House correspondent Weijia Jiang, CalMatters/The Markup’s chief impact officer Sisi Wei, and W. Kamau Bell and the “United Shades of America” team. 

“We are honored to be recognized by our peers and colleagues for the work we have done in the past six years to hold newsrooms to their word and archive efforts to expand who journalism is for and who gets to make it,” Salanga, who attended the ceremony to accept the award, said. 

AAJA is a professional association of more than 1,600 members across the United States and Asia. It works to advance the visibility and inclusion of AAPI journalists in newsroom leadership, alongside equitable coverage of AAPI people and issues. 

“The Asian American Journalists Association was honored to recognize The Objective, which holds newsrooms accountable on topics like diversity, representation and fairness,” AAJA said in a statement about the award. “Its coverage, led by James Salanga and Gabe Schneider, is never afraid to ask hard and uncomfortable questions. In doing so, they fight for more inclusive newsrooms and a better future for journalists.”

The recognition comes at a time when massive newsroom closures and layoffs continue to push journalists of color out of the industry, while targeted policies and discriminatory coverage of BIPOC, disabled, migrant, and LGBTQ+ communities persist nationwide. Without pathways for diverse newsroom staff to enter, stay, and remain safe in journalism, there is a dwindling likelihood of nuanced reporting that does not reduce marginalized communities to monoliths — especially crucial given that lived experience allows these reporters to better capture the devastating impact of political attacks on their communities alongside efforts to resist them.

The Objective is also a sponsor of the AAJA VOICES program, supporting emerging journalists through mentorship and training. Several VOICES student teams on the media reporting beat have covered the intersection of identity and power in journalism, from how journalism’s most influential awards lack diverse judges while top newsrooms recruit from elite colleges and student newspapers are rarely led by Black or Latine editors, to the closure of one of the U.S.’s last Filipino newspapers and the “Great Resignation” of journalists of color. 

The location of this year’s conference, Minneapolis, also served as a reminder of the city’s significance in ushering the conversations about racial equity in journalism into the mainstream after George Floyd’s murder — which gave rise to The Objective — and its role as a site for consistent solidarity over time. 

“I started The Objective because I saw history repeating itself in 2020: some progress, followed by promises of equity, and then an even more forceful retreat from those commitments,” co-director Schneider said. “That’s why it’s critical to keep holding newsrooms and our industry accountable while continuing to make space for new voices and new kinds of journalism — exactly what The Objective will continue to do and the kind of work that’s also come out of AAJA’s VOICES program.” 

Gathering with journalists, funders, and advocates underscored the importance of investing in a more equitable media ecosystem that flexibly adapts under political duress, as Minneapolis news outlets and organizations have done during ongoing immigration raids on the city. 

“While accountability in journalism is hard and ongoing, the communities and conversations I experienced in Minneapolis remind us that solidarity is a group project without an end date,” Salanga said. “I’m proud that our work is part of a lineage of many other groups — from Press On South, to the Movement Media Alliance, to UNITY — that strive to model it.”

For more information on how to support The Objective or get involved, please contact contact@objectivejournalism.org.