Fox News meets with Asian/Americans over offfensive Chinatown report

O'Reilly Factor 'reporter' Jesse Watters tried to interview a non-English speaking passerby in 
New York's Chinatown in his racially offensive segment.

By Louis Chan
REPRINTED FROM ASAM NEWS

TWO FOX NEWS executives met with representatives of the Asian American Journalists Association and other groups in New York yesterday (Oct. 25).

The meeting was called in response to the huge backlash after Chinese seniors were ridiculed and several stereotypes were resurrected on a Watters’ World segment aired during The O’Reilly Factor October 3.

The groups presented Fox with an open letter signed by 134 national, state and local organizations demanding a written apology to the AAPI community, diversity and sensitivity training at Fox News, a multi-part story more fairly representative of the Asian American community produced in consultation with veteran AAPI journalists, a commitment to double the number of AAPI guests on Fox to 4 percent and to increase the number of AAPI producers and reporters to 10 percent, and a commitment to meet annually with the AAPI community.

RELATED:

• Racist video spurs Chinatown forum; Fox a no-show
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The meeting was private and there was no public comment from Fox News. The names of the Fox representatives were also not released.

The tone coming out of the meeting from the AAPI groups was overall positive.

“The meeting was an open dialogue between the community and Fox News and we felt it was productive,” said Paul Cheung, president of AAJA, to AsAmNews.

“I sincerely hope that today’s events lay the groundwork for a fruitful and lasting conversation between Fox News and the AAPI community on issues of inclusion and diversity,” added Jenn Fang of the blog Reappropriate.

“We appreciate the opportunity to meet with Fox News today,” said Karin Wang, Vice-President of Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Los Angeles. “The segment clearly struck a nerve with Asian Americans of all ethnic backgrounds and reached far beyond New York City. We have conveyed this widespread and national anger and frustration to Fox News executives and we look forward to their response.”

Christopher Kang, National Director of the National Council of Asian Pacific Americans echoed those sentiments.

“The outpouring of support for this call to action–from across the Asian American and Pacific Islander community, including many student organizations, and beyond–is a powerful demonstration of the widespread outrage and hurt this racist segment has caused.”

New York Assemblymember Ron Kim also attended the meeting. He told The Washington Post that both sides have committed to meeting again in November. He said that the group presented the men with the open letter, and that they were “taken aback” by the display.

The person from the news side of the channel, said Kim, “tried to empathizse with the community’s anger and frustration and figure out ways to continue to meet in a structured way to promote some of the lack diversity and how we can alleviate that as a community.”

Among the specific points raised by the group was the diversity of voices on Fox News.

Kim said that the network is particularly deficient on this front with respect to Asian-Americans on its broadcasts. “They’re very agreeable to increase that number,” says Kim.

Kim came away thinking that the two Fox News reps “didn’t understand the gravity of the situation.”  (Views From the Edge contributed to this report.)

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Racist video spurs NY Chinatown forum, but Fox News absent

A chair was reserved for Fox News but the network failed to appear.

By Yin Mei
REPRINTED FROM ASAM NEWS

LEADERS in New York’s Asian/American community assembled Sunday (Oct.  9) to discuss a path forward after Fox News refused to apologize for airing a racist segment by reporter Jesse Watters last Monday on The O’Reilly Factor.

The Watters’ clip, watched by five million viewers live and millions more online, fueled a firestorm of rebukes from New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and other state politicians for flagrantly mocking and degrading Chinese Americans. At one point, Watters interviewed two elderly people who couldn’t speak English and therefore didn’t respond to him.

Sunday’s forum was held at the Museum of Chinese in America, not far from where Watter’s segment was video taped.  Two seats for Watters and O’Reilly sat empty in the front row. Neither responded to invitations to join the dialogue about media coverage of Asian/American Pacific Islanders. O’Reilly was busy defending Watters earlier in the morning on Fox News Sunday, saying the company is “proud of him.”

RELATED: Comedian has perfect answer to racist video

“I would have edited it a little bit differently than it was edited, but no it was not over the line,” O’Reilly told Chris Wallace on the show, adding that he received less than ten negative letters and zero phone calls in reaction to the segment.

“They’re all the same,” he said. “This is an attack on Fox News. That’s what it is.”

More than 17,000 people have signed a Change.org petition started by Jenn Fang, a feminist blogger, which demanded an apology, retraction of the Watters’ World segment and a meeting with Fox News executives. Fox News has yet to respond to the request, according to Fang.

“Is O’Reilly saying that these voices don’t matter?” said Paul Cheung, National President of the Asian American Journalists Association which organized the forum with MOCA.

“We’re not attacking Fox News,” said Ti-Hua Chang, an AAJA member, at the forum on Sunday. “We’re attacking one particular report.”

New York Assembly members Ron Kim and Walter T. Mosley, who both spoke at the event, suggested boycotting Fox News and demanding that The O’Reilly Factor’s corporate partners terminate their sponsorship. A letter writing campaign is in the works, according to Chang.

“When one community hurts, we all need to come to that community’s assistance,” said Mosley, a Democrat, adding that “we will go elsewhere [than Fox News] to find similar products, similar pieces of information.”

Kim said the clip struck a nerve as it perpetuated racist stereotypes that he still confronts, despite his public profile.

“Time and time again I’ve been asked where I’m from — China or Korea,” he said. “I’m an elected official.”

Although The O’Reilly Factor and Jesse Watters aren’t known for big scoops or hard-hitting journalism, any attempt on their part to produce a meaningful segment violated basic journalistic ethics, according to Chang, noting that reporters are advised to speak in a source’s native language or use an interpreter rather than whipping a microphone in the face of unsuspecting elderly Chinese Americans as Watters did.

“We’re living under this narrative that someone else wrote,” said Nancy Yao Maasbach, president of Museum of Chinese in America. “We need to redefine it.”

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