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Bill Blaikie

William Alexander "Bill" Blaikie (June 19, 1951 – September 24, 2022) was a Canadian politician. He served as a member of Parliament (MP) from 1979 to 2008, representing Elmwood—Transcona and its antecedent ridings in the House of Commons of Canada for the federal New Democratic Party. Following his retirement from federal politics, he was a member of the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba from 2009 until 2011, representing the Winnipeg division of Elmwood as a member of the New Democratic Party of Manitoba, and served as Minister of Conservation and Government House Leader.

Blaikie had the longest continuous parliamentary record in the 38th and 39th Canadian parliaments, and in this capacity served as the Dean of the House. He was a member of the King's Privy Council for Canada. Blaikie was the Deputy Speaker of the House of Commons of Canada from 2006 to 2008.

Prior to the 2011 Manitoba election, he announced that he was retiring from political life.

Early life and career
Blaikie was born to a working-class family in Winnipeg, Manitoba, on June 19, 1951. His father was employed by Canadian National for over forty years, at first as a machinist and later in management. Blaikie served in The Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders of Canada from 1967 to 1972, and was a labourer on and off with the Canadian National Railway from 1969 to 1974 while attending university. He was a member of the Young Progressive Conservatives in high school, and joined the NDP in 1971.

Blaikie earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in philosophy and religious studies from the University of Winnipeg (1973), and a Master of Divinity from Emmanuel College, Toronto School of Theology (1977). He was ordained as a minister in the United Church of Canada on June 4, 1978, and subsequently became a politician in the social gospel tradition of such figures as J.S. Woodsworth, Tommy Douglas and Stanley Knowles. From 1977 to 1979, he worked as the Minister/Director of North End Community Ministry, an inner-city outreach ministry of the United Church located within the historic Stella Ave. Mission in Winnipeg.

Federal parliamentarian
The New Democratic Party has never formed the national government in Canada, and Blaikie served in Ottawa for 29 years as an opposition MP. He held many important critic portfolios, and was respected by members of all parties for his personal integrity and conviction.

Clark, Trudeau and Turner governments (1979–84)
Blaikie was first elected to the House of Commons of Canada in the 1979 federal election, defeating incumbent Progressive Conservative MP Dean Whiteway (who had previously been elected in the riding of Selkirk, which was eliminated by redistribution). The Progressive Conservatives won a minority government under the leadership of Joe Clark, but lost a parliamentary motion of non-confidence later in the year. A new election was held in early 1980, in which the Liberal Party won a majority government under the leadership of Pierre Trudeau. Blaikie was comfortably re-elected in his own riding.

Blaikie was appointed the NDP's Social Policy Critic in 1979, and was promoted to Health Critic in 1980. He was instrumental in forcing Minister of Health, Monique Bégin, to enact the Canada Health Act in 1984, to deal with the crisis in medicare due to user fees and physicians' extra-billing. In her memoirs, Bégin wrote that Blaikie waged "guerilla warfare" in the House of Commons over the issue. He also served as caucus chair in 1983–84.

Mulroney and Campbell governments (1984–93)
The Progressive Conservatives won a landslide majority government in the 1984 federal election under Brian Mulroney, defeating the Liberals under their new leader John Turner. Blaikie was again returned for his riding, and was appointed NDP Environment Critic in the new parliament. He opposed the Mulroney government's budget cuts and was strongly critical of Environment Minister, Suzanne Blais-Grenier, saying, "It is clear she does not think about the environment. She thinks about the deficit." He called for Blais-Grenier's resignation in June 1985, after she remarked that national parks could be opened to mining and logging. In the same year, Blaikie brought forward a private member's bill calling for a three-year moratorium on the construction and export of nuclear power stations, to be followed by a national referendum on any further development.

Blaikie spoke against a bill that proposed the return of capital punishment in 1987, saying that its passage would mark "a step toward not a less violent society, but a more violent society". The bill was defeated in a free vote. He was also an opponent of Sunday shopping law reform in this period, arguing that it interfered with a community's right to determine common rest times.

He was promoted to External Affairs Critic in September 1987. One of his first major policy statements in this portfolio was to call for Canada to stop allowing American cruise missile tests over its territory. He was also critical of Canada's proposed Free Trade Agreement with the United States, and released a document entitled A Time To Choose Canada, the New Democrats' Trade Option with fellow MP Steven Langdon in February 1988. He also served as co-chairman of the NDP's international affairs committee, and held consultation meetings on whether or not the party should reaffirm its traditional opposition to Canadian membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Blaikie considered running for the leadership of the New Democratic Party of Manitoba in 1988, following the surprise resignation of Howard Pawley. He eventually chose not to run, and did not endorse any other candidate. He was retained as the NDP's External Affairs Critic after the Progressive Conservatives won a second consecutive majority government in the 1988 federal election, and was also chosen as his party's spokesman for federal–provincial relations and the Constitution. He was an international observer during Namibia's transformation to independence in 1989, and for Lithuania's first multi-party elections in early 1990.

There were rumours that Blaikie would seek the federal New Democratic Party leadership after Ed Broadbent's resignation in 1989, but he declined to run and instead supported Simon de Jong, whom he described as having the greatest awareness of environmental issues. When de Jong was eliminated on the second ballot at a delegated convention, Blaikie moved to the camp of Audrey McLaughlin, the eventual winner.

Blaikie was appointed NDP Taxation Critic in 1990. He opposed the Mulroney government's decision to cut social programs to pay down the deficit, calling instead for a tightening of tax loopholes. He was given further responsibilities as Transport Critic, and spoke against proposed job cuts at Canadian National.

In parliament
Blaikie's closest election came in 1993, when the Liberal Party under Jean Chrétien defeated the Progressive Conservatives under new leader Kim Campbell to win a majority government. The New Democratic Party's support base had fallen in this period, due to unpopular decisions made by the provincial NDP governments of Bob Rae in Ontario and Michael Harcourt in British Columbia. Blaikie defeated Liberal candidate Art Miki by only 219 votes in Winnipeg—Transcona while his party fell from 44 to 9 seats nationally. Between 1993 and 1997, Blaikie was the only New Democratic Party MP to represent a riding east of Saskatchewan. He was appointed NDP Critic for Foreign Affairs and Trade after the election, and served another term as caucus chairman from 1993 to 1996.

In early 1994, Blaikie won unanimous support in the House of Commons for a Private Member's Bill calling for the government to officially recognize Canadians who served in the Dieppe Raid in World War II. He initially proposed that a special medal be struck, but later accepted a Liberal amendment for a "distinctive decoration". He was disappointed with the final result, a simple silver bar with ribbon attachment that was given to all service personnel from 1939 to 1943. Blaikie voted against the Chrétien government's gun registry in 1995, arguing that it did not address the real problems of gun-related violence.

There were again rumours that Blaikie would run for the NDP leadership in 1995, but he declined and gave his support to Lorne Nystrom. When Nystrom was eliminated at the party's convention, Blaikie shifted his support to the winner, Alexa McDonough.

The duties of NDP MPs were shuffled after the leadership convention. Blaikie was named as House Leader, while continuing as International Trade Critic and adding the Intergovernmental Affairs portfolio. He continued to hold these parliamentary roles after the 1997 election, in which the Liberals won a second majority government and the NDP made a partial recovery to 21 seats.

Blaikie was re-elected to a seventh term in 2000, as the Liberals won a third majority government under Chrétien. He retained his position as House Leader and Intergovernment Affairs Critic, and gained additional duties as critic for Parliamentary Reform, Justice and the Solicitor-General. He played a key role in getting the NDP Caucus to support the Clarity Act in 2000, after securing amendments that were important to First Nations groups in Quebec.

Ideological views
Blaikie emerged as a prominent critic of economic globalization during the mid-1990s. In 1996, he wrote that new rules governing the World Trade Organization would shift oversight of public policy from elected governments to unelected trade bureaucrats. He expressed similar concerns about the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) two years later, arguing that it put the rights of investors ahead of workers, environments, societies, and cultures. He wrote the NDP Minority Report on the MAI, which was published in Dismantling Democracy (edited by Andrew Jackson and Matthew Sanger).

Blaikie wrote a 1994 editorial calling for the Bank of Canada to hold a larger portion of the national debt at low interest rates, as it did until the mid-1970s, in order for Canada to reduce its deficit while maintaining its core social programs. In 1998, he led a national campaign against proposed mergers for Canada's major banks.

During the late 1990s and early 2000s, the New Democratic Party members were divided as to the party's position on the Canadian political spectrum. Some wanted to take the party into a more centrist direction, similar to Tony Blair's "Third Way" in Britain, while others sought to move in a radical left-wing direction. Blaikie was not closely affiliated with either camp. He opposed Blair's ideological approach on the grounds that it was too closely aligned with corporate interests. He participated in anti-globalization protests in Seattle and Quebec City but also criticized the extra-parliamentary left's tactics, saying that protests would never bring economic change without mobilization in the political sphere. He opposed the New Politics Initiative at the NDP's 2001 convention, calling instead for a renewal of the existing party organization.

Leadership campaign
Blaikie was the first declared candidate in the 2003 leadership election. He called for a renewed focus on health care, natural resources and labour standards. Blaikie was seen as a representative of the party's moderate left, fitting ideologically between the centrist Lorne Nystrom and the more left-wing Jack Layton. He was supported by MPs Pat Martin, Judy Wasylycia-Leis, Bev Desjarlais, Wendy Lill, Yvon Godin and Dick Proctor, Manitoba Premier Gary Doer, New Democratic Party of Ontario leader Howard Hampton, and several former MPs including Simon de Jong, Dawn Black, Ian Waddell and Howard McCurdy. In declaring his candidacy, he said, "I've heard it said of the NDP that we are too attached to the past, but I tell you that it is our political opponents who are the Jurassic Park of Canadian politics. They would take us back to a meaner time when money was the measure of all things. We stand for the future that was sought and won and which must now be defended and enhanced."

The NDP's 2003 leadership convention was the first to be determined by a partial "one member, one vote" system in which all members of the NDP were eligible to cast ballots. Blaikie finished second to Jack Layton, who appointed him as Deputy Leader after the convention. As Layton did not have a seat in the Commons, Blaikie also served as the NDP's parliamentary leader until the 2004 federal election. This led to his being sworn in as a member of the Privy Council. He was also named as the NDP's National Defence Critic, and was front and centre in pushing the Liberals to not participate in the Iraq War, in opposing Canadian participation in ballistic missile defence, and in asking questions about the rules of engagement and changing role of Canadian troops in Afghanistan.

Martin government (2003–06)
Paul Martin succeeded Jean Chrétien as leader of the Liberal Party in November 2003 and as Prime Minister of Canada in December 2003, called a new election for June 2004. During this campaign, Blaikie openly disagreed with Layton's proposal that the Clarity Act be repealed. The Liberals were reduced to a minority government, and the NDP increased its representation from 14 to 19 seats. Blaikie continued as Deputy Leader and Defence Critic, and was also named as Health Critic. Notwithstanding their disagreement over the Clarity Act, Blaikie said that he enjoyed a good working relationship with Layton in parliament.

Harper government (2006–08)
The Conservative Party under Stephen Harper won a minority government in the 2006 federal election. Following the resumption of parliament in April, Blaikie was named as Deputy Speaker of the House of Commons. This position largely removed him from the day-to-day business of House debates, and put him in the role of a non-partisan overseer.

Parliamentary reform
Blaikie was an advocate for the reform of parliamentary institutions throughout his time in parliament. He served as second vice-chairman of an all-party committee on parliamentary reform in 1985, which among other things made it easier for private member's bills to come to a vote. He took part in another such committee in 1992, which issued a thirty-page report calling for more free votes, reforms to the parliamentary Question Period, and a streamlined process for passing legislation. He participated in a third such committee in 2001, although he indicated that he was disappointed with its results.

Retirement
On March 15, 2007, Blaikie announced that he would not be a candidate in the next federal election. He accepted a position as adjunct professor of Theology and Politics at the University of Winnipeg, and announced plans to write a book on the relationship between faith and politics. When he left the House of Commons in September 2008, he wrote an editorial that criticized parliament's declining standards, referring specifically to a rise in "character assassination, simulated indignation, and trivial pursuit over substantial debate".

Blaikie was a contributor to Northern Lights: An Anthology of Contemporary Christian Writing in Canada, which was published shortly after the 2008 federal election.

Provincial politics and later life
In December 2008, Blakie announced that he would seek the NDP nomination for the provincial division of Elmwood, which had been vacated by Jim Maloway, Blaikie's own successor in the federal riding of Elmwood-Transcona. He won the nomination unopposed, after two previously declared candidates withdrew to support him. Both Blaikie and Maloway have rejected the suggestion that they planned to "swap" their federal and provincial seats, and Blaikie has said that he returned to political life on the request of Premier Gary Doer. He was elected without difficulty in late March 2009, and formally joined the legislature the following month. On November 3, 2009, Blaikie was appointed to the cabinet of Premier Greg Selinger as the Minister of Conservation and Government House Leader.

As Conservation Minister, Blaikie stewarded the development of five new provincial parks in Manitoba in 2011 and played a significant role in the government's attempts to protect the boreal forest on the east side of Lake Winnipeg. A year later, he was conferred the Crocus Award from Nature Manitoba for his role in creating the five provincial parks.

On July 11, 2011, Blaikie announced that he would not be re-offering at the October 4 provincial election and would be retiring from political life.

Blaikie was appointed to the Order of Canada in November 2020 "for his lifelong contributions to parliamentary service and for his steadfast commitment to progressive change and social activism." Amid the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada, he was invested virtually on February 26, 2021.

Blaikie died from kidney cancer at his home in Winnipeg on September 24, 2022, at the age of 71.

His funeral was held on 2 October 2022 at a church in the Winnipeg suburb of Transcona, which was attended by family members, close friends, as well as Federal NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, provincial NDP Leader Wab Kinew and former Manitoba premier Greg Selinger.

Other information

 * In 1988, Blaikie and House of Commons Speaker John Fraser organized the first annual Robbie Burns supper on Parliament Hill. Blaikie delivered the ritual address to the haggis, and played a few unscheduled tunes on the bagpipes.
 * In February 2001, parliamentarians were polled on the most effective member of the House of Commons of Canada. Blaikie tied for third place with Prime Minister Jean Chrétien.
 * On November 21, 2007, Blaikie was given the Maclean's award for Best Parliamentarian of the Year, as voted by his peers.
 * Blaikie held the record as having the longest continuous parliamentary service of any CCF/NDP MP in Canadian history.
 * Blaikie's daughter, Rebecca Blaikie, was the New Democratic Party candidate for LaSalle—Émard in the 2004 federal election. As executive director of the party's Quebec wing, she was one of the architects of Thomas Mulcair's historic victory in a 2007 Outremont by-election and was widely credited with setting the groundwork for the party's 2011 sweep of the province. She then returned to Manitoba to work for the provincial government and the non-profit Community Education Development Association. In the 2011 election, she ran in Winnipeg North, losing by 44 votes.
 * Blaikie's son Daniel Blaikie was elected the NDP member for Elmwood—Transcona in the October 2015 federal election, and was re-elected in the 2019 and 2021 federal elections.

Electoral record
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All electoral information is taken from Elections Canada. Italicized expenditures from elections after 1997 refer to submitted totals, and are presented when the final reviewed totals are not available. Expenditures from 1997 refer to submitted totals. The +/- figures from 1988, 1997 and 2004 are adjusted for redistribution.

title: Bill Blaikie


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Talk:Colchester County

Delete?
142.177.41.88 23:09 17 Jul 2003 (UTC)I'm artson, the editor for http://dmoz.org/Regional/North_America/Canada/Nova_Scotia and I wrote the bulk of this for DMOZ, or copied it from the Provincial Archives (in the public domain), then entered it here. Use it at will.

Also note that I wrote the other county descriptions for Nova Scotia in the same manner.

Also please note that the Open Directory Project asserts a copyright for anything written by one of their editors, but as the material is from the public domain in Canada (and modified by me), I can hardly see how they may do that. Sue the original publisher of the Provincial Archives in Nova Scotia, Canada maybe? User:Artson

 * Are you sure that they assert a copyright for anything written by one of their editors? If so, please could you point me to the place where they say that? The licence says that Netscape owns the copyright to the compilation, but I don't think this is quite the same thing. The way in which the articles are organised is something in addition to the articles themselves. Or something like that. On the other hand, if it's true that you've somehow signed away the copyright to the material you contributed, then I don't think we can keep it here... -- Oliver P. 00:26 20 Jul 2003 (UTC)

 * Seems to me what the safest thing to do is start with the public domain source again and then modify in a different way than was used for the ODP. Use synonyms, change sentence structure around, that kind of thing. -- ESP 05:35 21 Jul 2003 (UTC)

 * Wha...? We've got explicit permission from the author to use it on Wikipedia. Unless the author is lying to us, we can use it on Wikipedia. avoid copyright paranoia. Martin

 * The point is that the author himself asserted that he might not own the copyright on his own work. (See his third paragraph above.) The relevant question is whether or not we have permission from the copyright holder, not whether or not we have permission from the author. I suspect that in this case they're one and the same, and this is all a big misunderstanding, but since it was the author himself that brought up the assertion that they might not be, I'm not sure we should just dismiss it. -- Uncle Oliver 00:57 22 Jul 2003 (UTC)

 * This is extremely amusing and kind of disconcerting. They are both open content licenses, and their intent (as with the NPL/MPL/GPL) was that they be compatible. I think the author is wrong. He owns the copyright to anything which he tangibly produces until he gives it up--which he has, to us. (BTW, IANAL.)

 * I will read the license. But it looks like nobody is going to delete it. The GFDL like all GNU licenses, I presume, says that if the original copyright holder (which would be him) releases it, it is released. AOL cannot treat his volunteer work as an employer's work.. they just can't. (If you work for DMOZ, and were doing it on their time, that changes the issue.)

 * Also, I cast my vote for cooperation. We give attribution to FOLDOC when we use it as well as other sources, but in this case, I do not believe it is neccessary to use a copyright notice.

 * --Sam
 * psuedolegal@paperlessconscience.com
 * The EFF would be an excellent consult in this matter as would the FSF.

- From Votes for Deletion
 * Colchester County, Nova Scotia
 * Possible copyright infringement. It's the same as text here, which is on the Open Directory Project website and apparently released under the Open Directory License. Which I gather isn't the same as the GFDL. -- Oliver P. 02:08 10 Jul 2003 (UTC)
 * Also Annapolis County, Nova Scotia, Antigonish County, Nova Scotia, Cape Breton County, Nova Scotia, Cumberland County, Nova Scotia, Digby County, Nova Scotia, Guysborough County, Nova Scotia, Halifax County, Nova Scotia, Hants County, Nova Scotia, Inverness County, Nova Scotia, Kings County, Nova Scotia, Lunenburg County, Nova Scotia, Pictou County, Nova Scotia, Queens County, Nova Scotia, Richmond County, Nova Scotia, Shelburne County, Nova Scotia, Victoria County, Nova Scotia, and Yarmouth County, Nova Scotia - Efghij
 * Couldn't we just comply with their license and add the attribution and link back? OIC - they require a strongly-worded waiver of liability and we don't have that (yet at least). --mav 04:33 10 Jul 2003 (UTC)
 * I think that would mean that we could use it, but it wouldn't amount to releasing it under the terms of the GFDL, would it? I think we want as much of our content as possible to be available under the terms of the GFDL. Otherwise things become too confusing! But by the way, I oppose the deletion of Halifax County, Nova Scotia and Hants County, Nova Scotia, as I am counting them as stubs. Just barely. :) -- Oliver P. 04:59 10 Jul 2003 (UTC)
 * I think we should have all our text under the GFDL; if we have to pass on various licenses to people who use our content, it will make things very confusing to anyone who wants to use the content (and it would probably be illegal, since the "licensed under the GFDL" footer on each page would no longer be accurate). Anyone object to removing all of those that haven't been turned into stubs (i.e. those that still retain the copyright violation boilerplate)? --Delirium 08:06 17 Jul 2003 (UTC)
 * Aparantly these were posted by the author (see Talk:Colchester County, Nova Scotia) - Efghij 02:05 18 Jul 2003 (UTC)
 * their author gave an explanation in the talk page of at least Richmond County, Nova Scotia and Colchester County, Nova Scotia. Don't know if it applies to the other ones though. Anthère
 * "I wrote the other county descriptions for Nova Scotia in the same manner". Don't delete. Martin 11:25 18 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Bible Hill
Change Bible Hill as Incorporated village. see http://www.biblehill.ca/ Bluetooth954 04:50, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Rename 2014

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: not moved. Armbrust The Homunculus 12:09, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

 * Colchester County, Nova Scotia → Colchester, Nova Scotia – The name should reflect the single name like Halifax, Nova Scotia ,Queens,Nova Scotia,*Argyle, Nova Scotia,West Hants, Nova Scotia,St. Mary's, Nova Scotia,Guysborough, Nova Scotia,East Hants, Nova Scotiaand Clare, Nova Scotia . User:Easternhfx 20:19, 16 May 2014 (UTC)

 * Oppose. The single name articles editor is using as examples to try to change the name of this article are not counties but community articles. Colchester County is not a community, it's a county. Cmr08 (talk) 02:43, 17 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Oppose per Cmr08 - counties are not regional municipalities, naming conventions and also real-world usage are very different.Skookum1 (talk) 02:31, 18 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Oppose per Cmr08. Just pointy nominations. -DJSasso (talk) 03:06, 20 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Oppose Cmr08 has it nailed IMO. Regards, Aloha27 (talk) 23:35, 21 May 2014 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Talk:Colchester County


text:
Talk:Bulletin board

(Redirected from Vision board)
While I'm not a fan of "vision boards," they are semantically distinct from "bulletin boards," so this redirect is highly misleading. Clocke (talk) 03:03, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Miscellanous comments
1. album by The Partridge Family

2. Hacker jargon

3. Standar usage of bulletin board

''This is a disambiguation page. If you followed a link here, you might want to go back and fix that link.''

What is this for? Mintguy 23:13 17 Jul 2003 (UTC) Was going to put in a short article with a photo illustration. And get competence in disambiguation after reading the article. Dmsar 23:30 17 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Are you trying to start an article? You've put it in the wrong place. Meta pages are not for articles, but for information relating the the operation of this site. Put you article at Bulletin board. and sign your name with 4 "~". --Jiang 23:27 17 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Nonono!!!! This doesn't belong here. Why put it on a utility page? Plus, you redirect should be #REDIRECTBulletin Board for it to work. Please move the contents of this page (minus the discussion) there and this one will be deleted. --Jiang 23:47 17 Jul 2003 (UTC)

End of moved material Enchanter 23:54 17 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Good job you guys, you made everthing nice, neat, and tidy while I was gonna eventually do it. So, You've lost a potential good wikipedian. I quit.

[Historical note: For part of its existence, this article was at Bulletin Board ; hence the references above to utility pages and the article being in the wrong place.]

cork board
the actuall cork board is a slice of bread not a cork board please investigate --91.87.217.65 (talk) 07:07, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Universities
§2 is silly and should be deleted. Deipnosophista (talk) 12:09, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

title: Talk:Bulletin board


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Asian American Journalists Association

The Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA) is a 501(c)3 nonprofit educational and professional organization based in San Francisco, California with more than 1,500 members and 21 chapters across the United States and Asia. The current president is Washington Post reporter Nicole Dungca. The executive director is Naomi Tacuyan Underwood.

The organization's goals are:

 * To provide a means of association and support among Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) journalists, and to advance AAPI journalists as news managers and media executives.
 * To provide encouragement, information, advice and scholarship assistance to AAPI students who aspire to professional journalism careers.
 * To provide to the AAPI community an awareness of news media and an understanding of how to gain fair access.
 * To research and point out when news media organizations stray from accuracy and fairness in the coverage of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and AAPI issues.

The organization is open to anyone who works in media and identifies as Asian American or is an ally. AAJA's diverse membership includes broadcast anchors, print reporters, editors, producers, videographers, columnists, photojournalists, freelancers, academics, professors, students as well as those who work in film and online media. The membership also consists of many associates in business and public relations sectors. Close to one-third of AAJA's members are students.

History
The Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA) was founded in 1981 by several Los Angeles–based Asian American journalists: Bill Sing, Nancy Yoshihara, and David Kishiyama (from The Los Angeles Times), Frank Kwan and Tritia Toyota (from KNBC-TV News), and Dwight Chuman (from Rafu Shimpo, the Japanese-American newspaper). Their goal was to support greater participation by Asian Americans in the news media and to ensure fair and accurate portrayals. The AAJA also aimed to encourage high school and college students through scholarship and internships as a way of increasing Asian American representation in the journalistic profession. The founders also wanted to enhance and improve the representation Asian Americans in mainstream mass media.

Inspired by the creation of the National Association of Black Journalists in 1975 as well as the Los Angeles–based California Chicano News Media Association, Sing, a 23-year-old Los Angeles Times reporter at the time, serendipitously met KNBC-TV anchor Tritia Toyota at a student night at UCLA in 1981 and consequently mentioned the idea of forming a similar organization. The two would soon become the leaders of the Original Six who got together in Los Angeles' Little Tokyo Service Center to form AAJA. The other members of the Original Six were David Kishiyama and Nancy Yoshihara of the Los Angeles Times, TV producer Frank Kwan, and Dwight Chuman, an editor of a local Japanese American newspaper.

Envisioned as a professional and educational group, AAJA attracted 50 Asian American journalists at its first social event. "There were more Asian American journalists under one roof than I ever imagined were in the business," said Kishiyama. "We all immediately drew strength from one another, and the feeling of isolation I had felt evaporated overnight."

Building on the momentum of the first social event, the founders knew they had to spread the word that AAJA was out there. A scholarship banquet was organized and NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw was the featured speaker for the event. More than 350 supporters, including city officials, media company representatives, and community folks attended the banquet. The dinner raised $18,000 for scholarships.

Despite the banquet's success, there was still skepticism at the time among journalists who were leery about being part of AAJA or similar organizations. The founders understood the predicament of being professionally independent and being part of an organization that was political in nature. But it was also around this time that some of the nation's newsrooms were starting to develop programs to recruit minorities into the industry. Many of the newsrooms seeking help in reaching parity in their newsrooms turned to minority journalism organizations like AAJA, NABJ and the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, which was founded in 1984.

By 1985, AAJA had 100 dues-paying members scattered across the country. AAJA's first executive director, Karen Seriguchi, was hired and soon chapters were formed in San Francisco, Sacramento, Washington, D.C., Hawaii and San Diego. By July 1987, membership reached 350 and more chapters were formed, including Detroit, Chicago, New York, Portland, New England, Florida and Denver.

Chapters
There are 19 chapters in the United States and one chapter representing Asia members. California alone has four chapters: Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, and Sacramento. In addition to Los Angeles, the largest chapters are New York, San Francisco, Seattle, Washington, D.C. and the Asia chapter. Members who do not geographically reside in any of the chapter cities are considered at-large members and include journalists spanning the globe from Paris to Bangladesh.

Affinity groups
AAJA affinity groups are specialized groups of AAJA members organized by vocation or interest, each led by a director or co-director. They strive to recruit new members and identify and pursue training and networking opportunities that meet members’ evolving and unique needs, as well as connect current AAJA members regardless of geography or career level.

National conference
AAJA holds an annual conference each summer in the United States where more than 800 Asian American journalists and allies attend each year for the workshops, plenaries, keynote speakers, job fair, and awards banquet. The three-day conference is the largest gathering of Asian journalists in the world. The conference has been held annually since 1987. Speakers, including keynote speakers, have included news pioneers Al Neuharth and Connie Chung, former United States President Bill Clinton, former United States Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, civil rights leader John Lewis and former international correspondent-anchor for NBC News Ann Curry.

Yearly sponsors of the conference have included the major network news stations (ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox), newspapers (The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal), sports media (ESPN), online media (Vox Media, Bleacher Report) as well as universities with journalism programs (Columbia University, CUNY, University of Southern California).

Cities with large media industries as well as large Asian populations are often chosen as hosts. Recent host cities include Atlanta, Houston, Philadelphia, Las Vegas, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Washington D.C. and New York City. The AAJA 2024 conference will be held in Austin, Texas from August 7 through August 11.

The Asia chapter holds its own conference annually in Hong Kong.

National programs
AAJA has several programs that cater to different experience levels within its membership, starting from high school to mid-career professionals. The programs run annually with application windows open either at the end of the calendar year, or at the beginning of the new year. Programs are funded with foundation support and contributions from media sponsors.

VOICES (College Program)
Voices is a summer multimedia journalism fellowship for undergraduate and graduate college students. Each year, a group of students are selected to work remotely part-time to report on issues related to Asian Americans. Professional mentors guide students through their assignments and provide a newsroom experience. Students also attend remote trainings while they work on their assignments in groups. Students that participate in the Voices newsroom are invited to the AAJA National Convention at the end of the summer to present their reports and to attend the convention. Travel and lodging are covered for students who are selected to participate.

Since its founding in 1990, Voices has graduated hundreds of students who would go on to work in the media industry. The program's cohort of graduates include 27 published authors, 15 Emmy Award winners, seven Pulitzer Prize recipients, four Edward R. Murrow Award winners and two Peabody Award winners.

JCamp (High School Program)
JCamp is a selective national journalism program for high school students. It strives to confront the lack of diversity within the industry, in regards to race, religion, identity, geography, sexual orientation and socioeconomic status. The six-day training brings together a multicultural group of teenagers to sharpen journalism skills and work together in a unique learning environment. The curriculum consists of interactive workshops, hands-on training and field trips that emphasize cross-cultural communication, ethics, leadership and networking. Students demonstrate a keen interest in broadcast, newspaper, magazine, photojournalism or online media. JCamp is open to high school freshmen, sophomores and juniors from all backgrounds. There is no fee to apply and all expenses are covered.

The program was founded in 2001 by Star Tribune reporter Neal Justin, Sacramento Bee reporter Josh Freedom du Lac and Philadelphia Daily News reporter Mark Angeles as a response to the media industry's diversity crisis. More than 750 students have graduated JCamp since its inception, and alumni have been recognized with the highest honors in the news business. Approximately 75% of the program's graduates have gone on to pursue a journalism degree after graduating high school.

Speakers have included Hoda Kotb, co-host of NBC's Today Show; Kevin Merida, editor-in-chief of The Undefeated; Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr., publisher of The New York Times; Jemele Hill, writer for The Atlantic; Wesley Lowery, correspondent for 60 Minutes; Seung Min Kim, White House reporter at the Washington Post; Cheryl Diaz Meyer, Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer; Byron Pitts, co-anchor of Nightline; Chuck Todd, host of Meet the Press; talk show host Jimmy Kimmel; Jill Abramson, former executive editor of The New York Times; Carl Bernstein, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Watergate reporter; Tucker Carlson, anchor for Fox News; David Rhodes, former president of CBS News; Soledad O'Brien, former CNN anchor; Bob Schieffer, former moderator of Face the Nation; Gwen Ifill, former co-host of PBS NewsHour; and Dennis Swanson, creator of The Oprah Winfrey Show.

MSNBC anchor Richard Lui, former CNN anchor Joie Chen, Politico deputy editor Clea Benson, former AAJA President Paul Cheung, Minnesota Public Radio President Duchesne Drew, Associated Press reporter Bobby Calvan and Star Tribune photo editor Kyndell Harkness have all taught at the program. Alumni have been recognized with the highest honors in journalism, including more than a dozen Emmy Awards, the Peabody Award and the Pulitzer Prize. Alums include filmmaker Jeff Orlowski, news anchor Terrell Brown, Washington Post reporter Arelis Hernandez, Wall Street Journal photo editor Timmy Huynh, ESPN reporter Brett Okamoto, CNN producer Julia Chan, CNN reporter Brian Fung, The Courier-Journal reporter Alfred Miller, Los Angeles Times reporter Sandhya Kambhampati, filmmaker Adam Khalil, reporter Taylor Mirfendereski and fitness entrepreneur Jackelyn Ho.

Executive Leadership Program (ELP)
The Executive Leadership Program is a week-long professional development workshop committed to journalistic excellence and leadership training. The program provides targeted professional development to diverse, high-potential, ambitious, and community-minded professionals. ELP also provides follow-up trainings for graduates at the annual AAJA National Convention. The program is open to all journalists who apply, regardless of membership to AAJA.

The program has trained more than 500 media professionals since 1995. In 2018, ELP was held at the City University of New York (CUNY). In 2019, the 24th class of ELP held its program at ABC News in New York City. Also in 2019, the program expanded to include an inaugural ELP Asia with the program held in Hong Kong.

Mentor Match
The yearlong mentoring program pairs mentees with experienced mentors in the media industry in the United States as well as in Asia, through AAJA's Asia chapter. Applications for both mentors and mentees usually open by the end of the calendar year, with matches announced by March of the following year. Several factors are used in determining mentor/mentee pairings, including geography, gender, medium (print, online, broadcast, photography, etc.), and career interests. In recent years, Mentor Match has been able to provide mentors who work outside of traditional newsroom positions, including those who work as data journalists or as documentary film producers.

In 2018, 130 mentor/mentee matches were made with applications coming from 27 states and internationally. Out of the mentors in the 2018 class, 51% had more than 10 years of experience. On the other end, 43% of mentees were students and 49% had less than five years of experience.

MediaWatch
AAJA MediaWatch is a civic engagement committee consisted of AAJA members who are media professionals. The committee seeks to hold media organizations accountable to standards of accuracy and fairness in the coverage of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and their issues. In consultation with AAJA's president, the all-volunteer committee considers and issues statements on AAJA's behalf.

In 2016, AAJA MediaWatch issued a statement demanding an apology from Fox News for a segment aired on Oct. 3rd that mocked Asian Americans in New York's Chinatown. The segment by Jesse Watters of "The O'Reilly Factor" was called "offensive" by The Washington Post and Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii said Watters "should be ashamed." AAJA also met privately with an “O’Reilly Factor” executive producer, along with other national and local community leaders, at the Museum of Chinese in America in New York City.

AAJA MediaWatch issued guidance in February 2020 urging news outlets to refrain from images and language that fuel xenophobia and racism amid the COVID-19 outbreak. Following that in March, MediaWatch issued a joint statement along with other media organization partners denouncing the escalating violence and anti-Asian rhetoric aimed at Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, including journalists, amid the pandemic.

Achievements
AAJA is one of the founding organizations and a partner organization of UNITY: Journalists of Color, Inc. along with the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ), the National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ), and the Native American Journalists Association (NAJA).

In 2019, the Features forum of the AAJA teamed up with the African American Film Critics Association (AAFCA), GALECA: The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics, the Latino Entertainment Journalists Association (LEJA), the Online Association of Female Film Critics (OAFFC) and Time's Up Entertainment to form the Critics Groups for Equality in Media to help foster greater diversity in entertainment journalism through various initiatives including a "watchdog" grading system.

On April 2, 2021, the Los Angeles chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists co-sponsored an event celebrating the AAJA's 40th anniversary, calling the organization a "vital resource for journalists reporting on the rise of anti-Asian racism and hate crimes."

title: Asian American Journalists Association


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Martingale (betting system)

A martingale is a class of betting strategies that originated from and were popular in 18th-century France. The simplest of these strategies was designed for a game in which the gambler wins the stake if a coin comes up heads and loses if it comes up tails. The strategy had the gambler double the bet after every loss, so that the first win would recover all previous losses plus win a profit equal to the original stake. Thus the strategy is an instantiation of the St. Petersburg paradox.

Since a gambler will almost surely eventually flip heads, the martingale betting strategy is certain to make money for the gambler provided they have infinite wealth and there is no limit on money earned in a single bet. However, no gambler has infinite wealth, and the exponential growth of the bets can bankrupt unlucky gamblers who choose to use the martingale, causing a catastrophic loss. Despite the fact that the gambler usually wins a small net reward, thus appearing to have a sound strategy, the gambler's expected value remains zero because the small probability that the gambler will suffer a catastrophic loss exactly balances with the expected gain. In a casino, the expected value is negative, due to the house's edge. Additionally, as the likelihood of a string of consecutive losses is higher than common intuition suggests, martingale strategies can bankrupt a gambler quickly.

The martingale strategy has also been applied to roulette, as the probability of hitting either red or black is close to 50%.

Intuitive analysis
The fundamental reason why all martingale-type betting systems fail is that no amount of information about the results of past bets can be used to predict the results of a future bet with accuracy better than chance. In mathematical terminology, this corresponds to the assumption that the win–loss outcomes of each bet are independent and identically distributed random variables, an assumption which is valid in many realistic situations. It follows from this assumption that the expected value of a series of bets is equal to the sum, over all bets that could potentially occur in the series, of the expected value of a potential bet times the probability that the player will make that bet. In most casino games, the expected value of any individual bet is negative, so the sum of many negative numbers will also always be negative.

The martingale strategy fails even with unbounded stopping time, as long as there is a limit on earnings or on the bets (which is also true in practice). It is only with unbounded wealth, bets and time that it could be argued that the martingale becomes a winning strategy.

Mathematical analysis
The impossibility of winning over the long run, given a limit of the size of bets or a limit in the size of one's bankroll or line of credit, is proven by the optional stopping theorem.

However, without these limits, the martingale betting strategy is certain to make money for the gambler because the chance of at least one coin flip coming up heads approaches one as the number of coin flips approaches infinity.

Mathematical analysis of a single round
Let one round be defined as a sequence of consecutive losses followed by either a win, or bankruptcy of the gambler. After a win, the gambler "resets" and is considered to have started a new round. A continuous sequence of martingale bets can thus be partitioned into a sequence of independent rounds. Following is an analysis of the expected value of one round.

Let q be the probability of losing (e.g. for American double-zero roulette, it is 20/38 for a bet on black or red). Let B be the amount of the initial bet. Let n be the finite number of bets the gambler can afford to lose.

The probability that the gambler will lose all n bets is qn. When all bets lose, the total loss is

 * $$\sum_{i=1}^n B \cdot 2^{i-1} = B(2^{n} - 1)$$

The probability the gambler does not lose all n bets is 1 − qn. In all other cases, the gambler wins the initial bet (B.) Thus, the expected profit per round is

 * $$(1-q^n) \cdot B - q^n \cdot B (2^n - 1) = B (1 - (2q)^n)$$

Whenever q > 1/2, the expression 1 − (2q)n < 0 for all n > 0. Thus, for all games where a gambler is more likely to lose than to win any given bet, that gambler is expected to lose money, on average, each round. Increasing the size of wager for each round per the martingale system only serves to increase the average loss.

Suppose a gambler has a 63-unit gambling bankroll. The gambler might bet 1 unit on the first spin. On each loss, the bet is doubled. Thus, taking k as the number of preceding consecutive losses, the player will always bet 2k units.

With a win on any given spin, the gambler will net 1 unit over the total amount wagered to that point. Once this win is achieved, the gambler restarts the system with a 1 unit bet.

With losses on all of the first six spins, the gambler loses a total of 63 units. This exhausts the bankroll and the martingale cannot be continued.

In this example, the probability of losing the entire bankroll and being unable to continue the martingale is equal to the probability of 6 consecutive losses: (10/19)6 = 2.1256%. The probability of winning is equal to 1 minus the probability of losing 6 times: 1 − (10/19)6 = 97.8744%.

The expected amount won is (1 × 0.978744) = 0.978744. The expected amount lost is (63 × 0.021256)= 1.339118. Thus, the total expected value for each application of the betting system is (0.978744 − 1.339118) = −0.360374.

In a unique circumstance, this strategy can make sense. Suppose the gambler possesses exactly 63 units but desperately needs a total of 64. Assuming q > 1/2 (it is a real casino) and he may only place bets at even odds, his best strategy is bold play: at each spin, he should bet the smallest amount such that if he wins he reaches his target immediately, and if he does not have enough for this, he should simply bet everything. Eventually he either goes bust or reaches his target. This strategy gives him a probability of 97.8744% of achieving the goal of winning one unit vs. a 2.1256% chance of losing all 63 units, and that is the best probability possible in this circumstance. However, bold play is not always the optimal strategy for having the biggest possible chance to increase an initial capital to some desired higher amount. If the gambler can bet arbitrarily small amounts at arbitrarily long odds (but still with the same expected loss of 10/19 of the stake at each bet), and can only place one bet at each spin, then there are strategies with above 98% chance of attaining his goal, and these use very timid play unless the gambler is close to losing all his capital, in which case he does switch to extremely bold play.

Alternative mathematical analysis
The previous analysis calculates expected value, but we can ask another question: what is the chance that one can play a casino game using the martingale strategy, and avoid the losing streak long enough to double one's bankroll?

As before, this depends on the likelihood of losing 6 roulette spins in a row assuming we are betting red/black or even/odd. Many gamblers believe that the chances of losing 6 in a row are remote, and that with a patient adherence to the strategy they will slowly increase their bankroll.

In reality, the odds of a streak of 6 losses in a row are much higher than many people intuitively believe. Psychological studies have shown that since people know that the odds of losing 6 times in a row out of 6 plays are low, they incorrectly assume that in a longer string of plays the odds are also very low. In fact, while the chance of losing 6 times in a row in 6 plays is a relatively low 1.8% on a single-zero wheel, the probability of losing 6 times in a row (i.e. encountering a streak of 6 losses) at some point during a string of 200 plays is approximately 84%. Even if the gambler can tolerate betting ~1,000 times their original bet, a streak of 10 losses in a row has an ~11% chance of occurring in a string of 200 plays. Such a loss streak would likely wipe out the bettor, as 10 consecutive losses using the martingale strategy means a loss of 1,023x the original bet.

These unintuitively risky probabilities raise the bankroll requirement for "safe" long-term martingale betting to infeasibly high numbers. To have an under 10% chance of failing to survive a long loss streak during 5,000 plays, the bettor must have enough to double their bets for 15 losses. This means the bettor must have over 65,500 (2^15-1 for their 15 losses and 2^15 for their 16th streak-ending winning bet) times their original bet size. Thus, a player making 10 unit bets would want to have over 655,000 units in their bankroll (and still have a ~5.5% chance of losing it all during 5,000 plays).

When people are asked to invent data representing 200 coin tosses, they often do not add streaks of more than 5 because they believe that these streaks are very unlikely. This intuitive belief is sometimes referred to as the representativeness heuristic.

Anti-martingale
In a classic martingale betting style, gamblers increase bets after each loss in hopes that an eventual win will recover all previous losses. The anti-martingale approach, also known as the reverse martingale, instead increases bets after wins, while reducing them after a loss. The perception is that the gambler will benefit from a winning streak or a "hot hand", while reducing losses while "cold" or otherwise having a losing streak. As the single bets are independent from each other (and from the gambler's expectations), the concept of winning "streaks" is merely an example of gambler's fallacy, and the anti-martingale strategy fails to make any money.

title: Martingale (betting system)


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User:Artson

Artson 23:33 17 Jul 2003 (UTC) I'm artson, sometime contributor of articles for wikipedia and very often, an editor for the Open Directory Project. My profile is found at Artson Lover of Oatmeal

title: User:Artson