U.S. Media Companies Should Employ More Asian Talent, Before Seeking Expansion into Asia
Posted on May 4, 2009
By Joe Miller |
It’s not news that large U.S. media companies have a deplorable record when it comes to hiring and promoting people of color. While Asians have made some strides in television dramas, there is a persistent dearth of Asians working in television news and in high level management posts.
Still, as the New York Times reported, these media companies are ramping up efforts to export their product into Asia, even though it comes nowhere near to representing the demographics of the U.S. population, much less that of the rest of the world.
In some cases, news reports on large media networks have been unapologetically xenophobic. Take CNN’s Jack Cafferty for example, who went so far as to call the Chinese (as a proxy for Asians, generally) “the same bunch of goons and thugs they’ve been for the last fifty years.”
Jack Cafferty and others continue to rail against the Chinese for producing inferior products and exporting them to the U.S. However, the standard is much lower when it comes American media companies exporting their racism.
Asian media executives should continue to deny American media companies access to their markets, until American television progamming, especially its news programming, begins to sound more inclusive and less like the same endangered American species that gave us backlash conservatism and who, for one reason or another, have never quite been able to evolve out of the cul de sac.
