Asian American organizations demand apology from Fox News for ‘racist’ segment

The Asian American Journalists Association issued a statement Oct. 5 demanding an apology from Fox News for a segment on Chinese American voters.

The Oct. 3 segment of “Watters’ World” on “The O’Reilly Factor”  “was billed as a report on Chinese Americans’ views on the U.S. presidential election but it was rife with racist stereotypes, drew on thoughtless tropes and openly ridiculed Asian Americans,” the statement said.

“The O’Reilly Factor” correspondent Jesse Watters and host of “Watters’ World” “mixed in stereotypes of various Asian groups, conflating Koreans with Chinese and Japanese communities. The segment used clips of martial arts movies and interviewed Asian Americans whose primary language isn’t English in order to mock them,” the statement said.

AAJA MediaWatch demanded an apology from Fox News to “our community and a meeting with the show’s producers to understand how this segment was conceived and greenlit to air. More importantly,  we want an explanation for how this type of coverage will be prevented in the future.”

AAJA said in an updated statement that it invited David Tabacoff, the program’s executive producer, to a town hall meeting, which was held Oct. 9 at the Museum of Chinese in America in New York. Tabacoff did not attend the meeting. He has, however, agreed to meet with AAJA and community leaders to discuss the segment at a private meeting, in New York, the association said.

Asian American rights organizations, including OCA – Asian Pacific American Advocates and the Japanese American Citizens League demanded an apology from the network.