Alex Fong
Current Title: Deputy Creative Director
Organization: San Francisco Chronicle
Country: United States
SND Vision
In the past year, the people and members committee and the board have been steadily making reforms. We have lowered the membership rate and developed a model for a cost-of-living-adjusted/hardship/young professional rate to make SND more accessible and inclusive in the United States and abroad. We have also created programming to re-engage with journalists from other countries to diversify the perspectives from which we may learn, beginning with our first Spanish-language Creative Conference Call. In the next year, I’m hoping we can make more gains in membership in the U.S. and abroad via engaging more with students and professionals. One strategy for this is producing more content or programming, which increases the value of the membership. We also need to do more recruitment for volunteers, who really power an organization like SND, while continuing to streamline our operations to improve volunteer retention. Beyond memberships, we need to continue looking for ways to make SND’s offerings more affordable.
Bio
Alex K. Fong is the deputy creative director for design at the San Francisco Chronicle and oversees a multidisciplinary team of designers, graphic artists, graphics reporters and developers. His more than 15 years of experience in the news industry has included leadership roles in newsrooms in the United States and overseas. In 2012, he collaborated on the redesign of some 80 daily print newspapers for Digital First Media, including the Los Angeles Daily News and the El Paso Times. During a four-year stint in China, Alex advocated for greater rigor in the practice of visual journalism and led the award-winning redesign of the Shanghai Star. Alex has mentored journalism students at the City College of San Francisco (where he was once a student) and currently serves on the journalism department’s advisory board. He is currently a member of SND’s Board of Directors. Alex is a musician in his spare time. He founded the post-punk band The Paper Tigers while living in Beijing. He builds his own audio electronics and has studied audio engineering and production privately at a recording studio near Oakland’s Jack London Square.