The National Association for Multi-Ethnicity in Communications will honor Nightline co-anchor Juju Chang with its 2022 Mickey Leland Humanitarian Achievement Award during its October 12 NAMIC Conference luncheon.

Chang, who also reports regularly for Good Morning America and 20/20 as part of a more than 30-year journalism career, is being recognized for her in-depth personal narratives set against the backdrop of pressing national and international news, according to NAMIC. Among Chang's recent career highlights are two, hour-long specials in 2021 revolving around the rise of hate crimes toward the Asian American and Pacific Islander community.

Chang, who began her career in 1987 at ABC News as an entry-level desk assistant, has also profiled newsmakers like Facebook COO Sheryl Sanderg, Joe Biden and Oprah Winfrey, as well as entertainers like Chris Pratt, Tom Hanks and Nicki Minaj. 

Also: NAMIC Set to Honor Next Generation Leaders, Luminaries at Conference

“Juju Chang’s storytelling, career and philanthropic endeavors represent what NAMIC stands for at its core: empowerment and advancement of diversity, equity, access and inclusion,” NAMIC Inc president and CEO Shuanise Washington in a statement. “Chang has boldly shared the lives and perspectives of people, who are too often underrepresented and marginalized. She’s given them a voice and shined an important light that will illuminate for generations to come.”

The 36th annual NAMIC Conference will take place October 11-12, part of the cable industry's Diversity Week festivities.■

Eman Varoqua has been named executive producer at Nightline on ABC. She joined ABC News in 2018 as a senior producer on Nightline. A year later she was promoted to senior broadcast producer. 

“She has been a creative team leader behind some of the program’s most enterprising stories and special projects, such as the continuing coverage at the U.S. border and the Emmy-nominated full-shows on the Uighurs,” said Kim Godwin, ABC News president, in a memo to staff. “She also executive produced the breaking news special on the January 6th riot at the Capitol on Nightline, and was a senior producer on the program’s documentary short, Asylum, which was accepted into the St. Louis International Film Festival, AmDocs and the Sarasota Film Festival.”

Before joining ABC News, Varoqua spent nine years at Channel One News, which was a youth-targeting newscast. Before that, she was a producer and assignment editor at NBC News. She began her career as a reporter for The Record, covering politics, courts and crime in New Jersey.

Nightline airs weeknights from 12:35 a.m. to 1:05 a.m. on ABC. Juju Chang and Byron Pitts anchor. 

“Eman is a proven leader with a track record full of success,” concluded Godwin. ■

The subject of diversity will take center stage this Wednesday (March 23) at the 23rd annual T. Howard Foundation Diversity Awards Dinner in New York. Juju Chang, co-anchor of ABC’s Nightline, will host the event, which recognizes and celebrates industry leaders and companies committed to increasing diversity. T. Howard Foundation president Jo Pamphile spoke with Multichannel News programming editor R. Thomas Umstead about this year’s event, which will award a Corporate Excellence Award to HBO, a Corporate Championship Award to ABC Entertainment and a Diversity Partner Award to Crown Media Family Networks and Microsoft. Pamphile heads a diversity organization that helps place young college-age people of color into internship programs. This year, the organization received more than 1,500 applications from college students of color for about 100 potential internship opportunities in 2016. Here are highlights of their conversation.

MCN:Heading into the dinner, do you believe the T. Howard Foundation is on the right track of accomplishing the diversity goals it set for itself and for the industry?

Jo Pamphile: We’re feeling that it’s sort of our time in a sense because, for one, diversity is in the news constantly. We believe we’re in such a good place with regards to our diversity efforts. Over the years, we have grown so much — we started as a summer program, and now we’re a year-round program. We have over 100 interns total this year, but we’ve expanded our reach beyond placing interns.

We now have a professional-development arm that we call our talent development program. What that program does is provide all the professional tutoring that the candidates will need for their positions.

We will also soon start a more aggressive eff ort to recruit diverse talent in the tech space. The industry is changing in that regard and the need for talent with those skills is growing. We feel that this is something that we have to do because the needs of our host companies are changing, and to keep up with that, we have to change, too. We will look to increase our recruiting eff orts to include engineers and [information technology] and digital media candidates.

MCN:Are you finding that more companies are reaching out to T. Howard to look for qualified persons of color?

JP: Yes. Our relationship with the industry has grown tremendously, not only in the number of companies, but in terms of the depth of services that we’re providing. Before, they may have just taken a summer intern but now they’re calling to help fill positions beyond entry-level.

When we talk about diversity, it’s easy to say you’re going to commit to it, and it’s another thing to actually do it. Companies want someone who really gets them and knows what they need, so for us it’s about knowing the skills requirement and the culture of their organization. There are young people out there who are talented, are willing to sacrifice and work the extra hours and do what it takes to be successful.

MCN:How did the organization come to choose its honorees for the event?

JP: I’ve had my eye on HBO for a long time, because their programming has been excellent in terms of diversity. When you think of HBO, you think of things like When the Levees Broke, produced by Spike Lee; and, most recently, the story of Bessie Smith (Bessie), played by Queen Latifah. They have always been innovative, and now we have the opportunity to honor them.

With regards to ABC Entertainment, who hasn’t heard of their “Thank God Its Thursday” lineup of Scandal, How to Get Away With Murder and Grey’s Anatomy? Who hasn’t heard of American Crime, black-ish and Fresh Off the Boat? We really look to honor companies like ABC that have a shared commitment to diversity on and off the screen.

We also have great guest presenters in John Ridley and Russell Simmons.

MCN:Overall, how do you see the industry’s diversity efforts?

JP: The doors are opening and I think that we’re no longer typecasting. It’s really saying we need to hire a person for this position, and if a person of color meets those requirements and is able to do the job, that person will get there.

Fusion will air its own version of ABC’s late-night news show Nightline, the network said Thursday.

Nightline On Fusion will launch Feb. 18 air at 8 p.m. and will include stories from the late-night program that resonate with Fusion’s diverse, millennial audience. ABC News’ Gio Benitez and Fusion’s Kimberly Brooks will host the series.

ABC News will produce the series. The two-year old Fusion network is owned by Univision Communications Inc. and the Disney/ABC Television Network.

"We are pleased to bring Nightline's immersive storytelling style to a younger generation -- a generation that craves news content that reflects their diverse interests and passions," said Fusion Senior Vice President and Chief Programming Officer Wade Beckett in a statement.