The Asian American Journalists Association convention in Miami has been interesting, but I don’t really have any great journalistic revs to report. Mainly, I’m entertained by the confusion that surely must greet regular hotel guests who, having arrived here in the gateway to Latin America, are immediately confronted by the sight of nearly 1,000 Asian journalists schmoozing it up in the lobby. I love it.

Print and on-air TV journalists are laughably easy to identify, as the latter are impeccably well-dressed, and have made really admirable use of cosmetics. Mainly the female reporters, but some men, too, I suspect. There are at least two TV reporters wearing nearly identical canary yellow suits. If they stand next to each other I fear the spectacle might actually blind passersby, though I’m sure it would register brilliantly on the tube in HD.

Some of the younger convention attendees have ribbons on their name tags that say, simply, “HIRE ME.” I think this is an excellent policy that should not only be adopted for all journalism conventions, but expanded, too. Let’s just lay all our cards on the table. I’m thinking a great big sandwich board on which everyone advertises their precise motivation for being at the conference: “HIRE ME: 22-year-old journalist of Korean descent, Ivy League graduate, desperate to leave 12K circ daily in rural Idaho, only person of Asian descent in seven-county area, $19K annual salary not covering massive student loan debt, please help.” It would catch on fast, I think.