AsAmNews

What AsAmNews does

AsAmNews is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit digital news platform (legally Asian American Media, Inc.) that publishes daily original reporting and aggregated headlines covering Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) communities across 40+ distinct ethnic groups, including Chinese American, Filipino American, Indian American, Japanese American, Korean American, Vietnamese American, and Pasifika categories. Founded in 2012 by veteran journalist Randall Yip and incorporated as a nonprofit in December 2021, the platform operates as a website (asamnews.com) with multilingual accessibility in Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), Korean, and Vietnamese, supported by a multi-channel distribution footprint across Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X, Bluesky, YouTube, and tiered email newsletters.

The underlying technology is a conventional digital content publishing platform with no public API, no disclosed AI/ML capabilities, and no proprietary software products; differentiation is delivered through editorial breadth, community-driven submissions, and an internship/scholarship pipeline that trains AAPI journalists. The organization is staffed by 1-10 employees, many of whom remain volunteer-based even after the 2022 California state grant enabled partial staff compensation, and reports a mailing address in Covina, CA. Content is free to readers and is preserved by the Library of Congress as of Fall 2024.

The business model is nonprofit and donation-dependent. Revenue comes from foundation and government grants (State of California, California Library Commission, The Asian American Foundation, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Koo & Patricia Yuen of the Yuen Foundation, AARP, The Henri and Tomoye Takahashi Charitable Foundation), Report for America/GroundTruth Project corps member placements, reader donations (with $20+ donors recognized on the Bad Ass Asian Wall of Fame), and TAAF-funded internship scholarships. Go-to-market is community-led: audience is acquired through organic social, newsletters, and word-of-mouth within AAPI communities, while funding is secured through institutional grant applications and donor cultivation. The customer base is a single horizontal segment—general AAPI audiences seeking culturally relevant news, with editorial independence formally maintained as a stated policy.

Name

AsAmNews

Legal name

Asian American Media, Inc.

Website

https://asamnews.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2012

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

AsAmNews is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit daily digital news platform serving Asian American and Pacific Islander communities across 40+ ethnic groups with original reporting, multilingual content, and reader-funded operations via grants and donations.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Ethnic Digital News Media

NAICS

Newspaper Publishers (513110)

SIC

Newspapers: Publishing Or Publishing & Printing (2711)

akta.pro primary industry

Community, Ethnic & Multilingual News Publishers (MPAJADAG)

akta.pro secondary industries

Newsletters & Email-Based News Publishers (B2B/B2C) (MPAJADAJ), News & Current Affairs Aggregators (MPACAKAA)

Keywords

• Ethnic digital news
• AAPI community journalism
• Multilingual news content
• Nonprofit news media
• Community-driven reporting

Headquarters

HQ city

San Francisco

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Digital Commerce or Content

Cost components

Personnel, Marketing or Sales, Technology or R&D, Operations, Others

Revenue model

1. Foundation and Government Grants: AsAmNews receives funding from numerous foundation and government grants including from the State of California, California Library Commission, and various charitable foundations to support operations and coverage.
2. Reader Donations: The site is supported by generous readers. Donors of $20 or more are recognized on the Bad Ass Asian donor Wall of Fame. Donations are accepted via debit/credit card, Venmo, PayPal, ACH, and Donor Advised Funds.
3. Scholarship Program Grants: The Asian American Foundation provides grants to support internship scholarships for students who would otherwise not be able to accept an unpaid internship.

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels1 record

Marketing channels9 records

Core offering

AsAmNews publishes a daily digital news platform that delivers original reporting and aggregated headlines on Asian American and Pacific Islander communities across more than 40 ethnic group categories, with multilingual accessibility in Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), Korean, and Vietnamese. The platform also operates email newsletters, regional newsletters for New York, San Francisco, and Maui, and an open submissions/contributor pipeline for community-sourced stories and guest opinions.

Product overview

AsAmNews operates as a single, unified digital news platform publishing daily content for Asian American and Pacific Islander communities. The site functions as both an original reporting outlet and an aggregator of headlines from mainstream and ethnic media. Content spans multiple topic categories including politics, health, immigration, sports, community issues, and cultural features, with dedicated sections for specific ethnic communities such as Chinese American, Filipino American, Indian American, Japanese American, Korean American, Vietnamese American, and others. The platform also offers community resources, a scholarship program for journalism interns, and accepts reader donations through its Bad Ass Asian Wall of Fame donor recognition program.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• AsAmNews daily digital news platform Daily online publication delivering original reporting and aggregated headlines on Asian American and Pacific Islander communities across 40+ ethnic group categories, with multilingual accessibility in Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), Korean, and Vietnamese. Free to all readers.

Segments1 record

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Scale indicators3 records

Recent moves8 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• Colorlines: Colorlines is a daily news site focused on racial justice and ethnic community coverage in the U.S. It shares AsAmNews's nonprofit, mission-driven approach to covering underrepresented communities and serves as a directly comparable ethnic-focused digital news model.
• Hyphen Magazine: Hyphen was a nonprofit news and culture magazine covering Asian American identity, community, and culture before pausing operations. It represents the closest historical analog to AsAmNews's community-focused AAPI journalism mission.
• NextShark: NextShark is a digital news and culture platform focused on Asian American news and broader Asian diaspora coverage, operating with a similar digital-first, social-distribution model targeting AAPI audiences. It is one of the most directly comparable AAPI-focused digital news outlets to AsAmNews.
• Documented: Documented is a nonprofit digital news outlet covering immigrant communities and policy in New York. It shares AsAmNews's nonprofit newsroom model, multilingual approach, and mission of providing dedicated coverage to underserved communities.
• Prism Reports: Prism is a nonprofit news outlet led by journalists of color that focuses on the intersections of politics, policy, and lived experience of marginalized communities. It shares AsAmNews's nonprofit newsroom model and mission-driven editorial approach to underserved communities.

Broad incumbents

• South China Morning Post (SCMP): SCMP is a major English-language news outlet covering Asian and Asian-diaspora news with global reach. It competes for AAPI and Asian-diaspora reader attention though from a much larger and Hong Kong-based perspective.
• NBC News Asian America: NBC News ran a dedicated Asian America vertical from 2014-2019 covering AAPI stories and culture. Although it was archived, it represents the broad-incumbent model of mainstream media covering the AAPI space that AsAmNews now occupies more singularly.

Others

• Ethnic Media Services: Ethnic Media Services is a nonprofit that supports ethnic media outlets across the U.S., including awarding recognition to AsAmNews. It is an ecosystem enabler rather than direct competitor, but operates in the same AAPI and ethnic-media foundation ecosystem.

Emerging players

• Angry Asian Man (Phil Yu's blog): A long-running AAPI-focused blog and aggregator covering news, culture, and media commentary. While primarily a solo creator operation, it occupies adjacent community-driven AAPI media space and shares AsAmNews's audience demographic and social-distribution approach.
• AAPI Data: AAPI Data is a research and data-publishing initiative focused on AAPI demographics, policy, and public opinion. While not a daily news outlet, it operates in the AAPI information ecosystem and shares AsAmNews's audience and foundation-funder ecosystem.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/asamnews
• YouTubeyoutube.com/@asamnews3841
• Facebookfacebook.com/AsAmNews
• Instagraminstagram.com/asamnews
• TikToktiktok.com/@asamnews
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/asamnews

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles5 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about AsAmNews