CNN is taking some heat for its very superficial Feb. 8 report on "Anderson Cooper 360" about why Asian American Democratic voters are favoring Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama.
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.
Posted by harry at February 15, 2008 8:25 PM
9 Comments
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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.
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
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.
I hope Clinton wins, I believe she would make a difference.
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.
Here's an assessment of the situation from The Huffington Post by Scott Kurashige.
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 vote
http://goldsea.com/802/20hawaii.html
does anyone has the latest news on the petition and if CNN has taken any action since?
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).