Public marriage proposals are commonplace, with giant screens at sporting events often displaying variations of “Will you marry me?” while spectators wait for the answer to the question.
“When you see these proposals, you feel like you’ve seen it all before. And you wish there had been more creativity involved,” said Howard Chen, an ESPN producer who was instrumental in surprising two longtime friends at the Asian American Journalists Association convention in Austin last week.
Towards the end of the AAJA gala banquet on Saturday, where Connie Chung was honored with a lifetime achievement award, co-host Jason Nguyen – with Chen’s help – proposed to his co-host Rosie Nguyen.
“I had no idea – NO idea – that before we were about to say goodbye, he would get down on his knees,” Rosie Nguyen, KTRK’s racism and culture reporter in Houston, posted on Facebook on Monday.
Jason, senior investigative producer at KPRC, enlisted a small circle of AAJA members and staff to help him keep the proposal secret. “There was no reason to say no!” said Naomi Tacuyan Underwood, executive director of AAJA. Chen’s most important task was to make sure Rosie’s family could witness the moment via FaceTime.
The Nguyens, who have often joked that they are not related because of their shared last name, met as co-hosts of a beauty pageant in Salt Lake City in 2014. “He took away my dream of becoming the first Vietnamese reporter” in that television news market, Rosie posted on Facebook last year.
They met again in 2016, when Jason was working in Portland, Oregon, and Rosie was in Eugene. In 2018, she returned to her hometown of Salt Lake to report for Jason’s former station, KTVX. A year later, Jason (then in Chicago) followed Rosie to Utah, where KTVX hired him as an investigative reporter.
When the AAJA invited the Nguyens to co-host this year’s gala, Jason thought that proposing to her onstage would “bring their relationship full circle,” since they had met as co-hosts and had been a couple for six years.
“Journalism brought us together, and journalism is what keeps us together,” Jason said, adding that he liked the idea of their colleagues witnessing an important moment in their lives.
Jason, who had been standing next to Rosie at the lectern, led her to the center of the stage as the gala ended. People in the room suspected they exchanged more than the usual host banter, especially after Jason said he had spoken to Rosie’s family and Chen appeared onstage via video chat with Rosie’s mother and sister.
Jason said he spoke to their families and even their dog, Dug (“every time she was away, I practiced (the proposal) with Dug”). Dozens of journalists in the room held up their cellphone cameras to capture the moment Jason got down on one knee. When Rosie said “yes,” the cheers in the room were deafening.
“No matter how many times I watch the video, emotions always come to mind,” Chen said.
The question now is whether their wedding reception will take place at next year’s AAJA convention.
