NAAJA-US Guidelines

• NAAJA is an official partner of the Society of Professional Journalists.
• NAAJA does not charge a membership fee, however there is a membership fee required to join SPJ and receive their full benefits.
• Our goals are to bring professional journalists from the Middle East together and to create a networking environment free of politics that helps members meet, promote and help each other.
• We abide by the SPJ Code of Ethics.
• We encourage "members" to organize chapters in their cities and take control of their activities. We wish to network with ALL Arab and Middle East Journalism organizations.
• We host journalism and writing contests, such as the Mehdi Courage in Journalism Awards; sponsor regional conferences and seminars; and provide a journalism scholarship for students of Middle Eastern heritage who are entering their first year of journalism school.
• We're not here to boss you around. We are here to help you build your professional journalism career.
• We are NOT a political advocacy organization, except in the context of advocating professional journalism conduct by the mainstream media and by the Arab American ethnic media. While we address political issues, we do so only in the context of professional Journalism.
• Our main goal is to help Arab Americans become more professional, and to work to engage Arab Americans to insure that their journalism product is in harmony with the fundamentals of professional journalism. We strive to be journalists not activists or advocates and to insure that our written product is consistent with professional jorunalism and not advocates for popular causes in our community. We are not activists for political issues, but journalists for accuracy, fairness. balance, and principle.