CNN blasted for report on Asian American voters

Harry Mok
February 15, 2008

We're a few days behind the news on this, but it's generated some Internet chatter. 80-20 Initiative had a petition against CNN (sign ups are over) and got the network to include them in a program.

One of the chief complaints is they seemed to seek out the most inarticulate people to interview, most of whom didn't speak English very well. Is that how the mainstream media views Asian Americans?

How hard would it be to do a report on Asian Americans but NOT go to Chinatown to interview people?

The report also basically said Asian Americans like Clinton because she's white with no other analysis of other reasons she might be getting support over Obama.

Here's a report of the criticisms at New America Media.

Here's Angry Asian Man's take.

And on YellowWorld.

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Harry Mok

Editor in chief

Editor in Chief Harry Mok wrote about growing up on a Chinese vegetable farm for the second issue of Hyphen and has been a volunteer editor since 2004. As a board member of the San Francisco and New York chapters of the Asian American Journalists Association, Harry has recruited and organized events for student members. He holds a master’s degree in journalism from the University of California, Berkeley, where he was also a graduate student instructor in the Asian American Studies Department.

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Comments

Comments

Diane Lee wrote on Sat, 02/16/2008 - 2:23am
Thanks for posting this Harry. It angers me to know that even well-known news organizations like CNN can be unfair in their reporting on race, and it goes to show that making assumptions is never a good thing.You can tell they interviewed people at an Asian store. How typical.
RELAX wrote on Sat, 02/16/2008 - 9:36am
I agree with Diane, harry this is a great post with informative and great articles to support the way people think and vote. Great post
lisalee wrote on Sat, 02/16/2008 - 10:14am
this is... really disturbing. they kept on referring to "asian americans" when i really doubt that they interviewed many. i wonder if they did, and if they didn't say what cnn was looking for, they just cut them out of this so-called report. either way, watching this sort of made me sick to my stomach.
Draugai wrote on Sat, 02/16/2008 - 2:46pm
I hope Clinton wins, I believe she would make a difference.
Anonymous wrote on Sat, 02/16/2008 - 3:55pm
No more Clintons. When the Hawaii primaries, or Caucus comes around you will really see the news on the Asian vote. Lets see what stand they will take.
Harry wrote on Mon, 02/18/2008 - 9:19am
Here's an assessment of the situation from The Huffington Post by Scott Kurashige.
RELAX wrote on Wed, 02/20/2008 - 6:41am
Heres a good article, Barracks Asian brother-in-law campaigning for him on Hawaii. I wonder what the percentage he received from Asian voter? Why didnt he use his family to campaign for him in California? Could Hawaii be a sign he captured the Asian votehttp://goldsea.com/802/20hawaii.html
yina chun wrote on Fri, 02/22/2008 - 11:02am
does anyone has the latest news on the petition and if CNN has taken any action since?
cs7 wrote on Fri, 02/22/2008 - 11:09am
The nos. for Hispanics aren't all that different and there is (for both groups) a generational divide (hmm, I wonder why they didn't look into that?).Nonetheless, it's hardly surprising that they would take a typical stereotypical and sloppy one-sided view of Asian-Americans (which is probably why Cornell's President referred to the mostly Asian-AMERICAN students as IMMIGRANTS and professed his "love affair w/ Asia").And gee, Obama got the vast majority of the votes in Hawaii (which is 60% Asian).