Asian Americans Reporting on the Beijing Olympics

By John | Sunday, August 17, 2008 | 2 Comments

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As I had blogged on the Opening Ceremonies, I was a bit disappointed that NBC’s China analyst didn’t happen to be a Chinese American. But if you haven’t noticed, there have been Asian Americans reporting for Beijing for NBC, as well as others reporting about the Olympics.

First, and foremost, in the morning, there is anchorwoman Ann Curry, Japanese American, of NBC’s Today Show. I’ve seen her a few times in the morning when trying to catch up on Olympic news.

During the evening of the Opening Ceremonies, I was checking out www.NBCOlympics.com, and saw the video “Post Opening Ceremonies by Ted Chen” online, where Ted Chen briefly interviews his Chinese-American colleague about his thoughts on the ceremonies and summarizes his own thoughts on the Ceremonies.

I’ve also caught Eyee Hsu doing storiesfor NBC, such as “Beijing tips and tidbits” (video). After doing a quick Google search, I discovered that Eyee Hsu is very close friends with a friend of mine Christine, and helped her start ORIENTED.COM. Hsu also did a story on the popularity of basketball in China (I found an “OK” video on YouTube here (couldn’t find it on NBC Olympics.com … )

Earlier this past week, Al Roker interviews Jennifer 8. Lee in a piece titled, “‘Chinese’ food, the American way“- about Americanized Chinese food that isn’t really Chinese. If you haven’t forgotten, I blogged about Lee and her book, The Fortune Cookie Chronicles.

AND, I although not directly related to the Olympics, I just saw this morning, Juju Chang doing a story “The History of the Fortune Cookie” interviewing Jennifer 8. Lee about the fortune cookie.

Why is Asian Americans reporting on the 2008 Beijing Olympics important and why am I blogging about it? Well, I’ve blogged before about “Diversity in Entertainment: Why Is TV So White?” and “Gender And Ethnic Diversity in Prime-Time Cable News – don’t forget us Asian Americans!”

The Olympics is one of the largest events broadcasted worlwide on television. With the Olympics being held in Asia for only the third time (previously in Tokyo and Seoul), and with general low representation of Asian Americans on American television, I think there is only a natural affinity and knowledge of Asian history and culture that Asian American may have for reporting on the Olympics and China in Beijing. If not in Beijing, then where? At least that is my thinking… of course, we can only hope that Asian American journalists are more represented and covering all topics of the news.

So it was with pleasure to see on August 8th, 2008, Brian Williams talking with John Yang, NBC News correspondent on the evening of the Olympics reporting on “Territory battle escalates between Russia, Georgia,” and reporting from Beijing because he reports on the President and Washington, D.C. news and was in Beijing because George W. Bush was in China and traveling with him, along with the rest of the press corp.

Hopefully this is not an exhaustive list of Asian Americans reporting on or at the Olympics. Please let me know if I left anyone out and post some links to video. Thanks.

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