A coalition of prominent Asian American and Pacific Islander civic and civil rights organizations has united to deliver an open letter to MSNBC, CNN and Fox News -- the country's three largest providers of cable news -- demanding that the networks address the persistent underrepresentation of the AAPI community in their programming.
The coalition's letter, organized by the National Council of Asian Pacific Americans and Reappropriate, responds to recent incidents that involve news hosts and guests who made disparaging remarks about the AAPI community on air. The letter highlights research by Media Matters that shows that Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders make up less than 3% of invited nightly news or Sunday morning political talk show guests, even though AAPIs are nearly 7% of the United States population.
"Networks need to ensure that Asian American and Pacific Islander voices and perspectives are heard and that issues of importance to our communities are discussed," said NCAPA National Director Christopher Kang. "If we are invisible in the media, racial slurs and inaccurate portrayals of AAPIs will persist, but when Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders are better represented -- in particular, in the news--it allows for a more diverse understanding across all communities. All Americans -- including AAPIs -- deserve more accurate representation in our media."
The letter asks that MSNBC, CNN and Fox News commit to a meeting between their editorial boards and members of the AAPI community within the next 90 days to discuss concrete steps for improving the representation of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in their programming.
"The profound underrepresentation of Asian American and Pacific Islander people on primetime news exacerbates the injury caused when someone like Ann Coulter uses her time as a guest of Hardball with Chris Matthews to mislabel Asian Americans with the racially charged term 'Mandarins," as she did last month," said Jenn Fang of Reappropriate.
"Networks may not be wholly responsible for their guest's commentary, but it is troublesome that they routinely enable the broadcast of offensive comments while they simultaneously deny members of targeted communities the same opportunity to respond and engage with our national political discourse."
The joint letter is signed by twenty-three of the nation's most prominent AAPI organizations, whose work spans a broad range of interest areas.
Here's the full text of the letter:
June 16, 2016
Phil Griffin
President
MSNBC
Andrew Lack
President and Chairman
NBC News
Craig Robinson
Executive VP, Chief Diversity Officer
NBC Universal
Jeff Zucker
President
CNN
Geraldine Moriba
VP of Diversity
CNN
Roger Ailes
Chairman and CEO
Fox News
Jay Wallace
Executive Vice President
Fox News
Dear Mr. Griffin, Mr. Lack, Mr. Robinson, Mr. Zucker, Ms. Moriba, Mr. Ailes, and Mr. Wallace,
We write this joint letter to express our concerns regarding the representation of the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community on your cable news networks. Collectively, CNN, MSNBC and Fox reach more than 3.5 million primetime viewers per day, and recent events raise troubling questions about the characterization and lack of inclusion of the AAPI community on your programming.
On Friday, May 27, 2016, Ann Coulter appeared as a guest of the Hardball with Chris Matthews show on MSNBC. During her segment, Ms. Coulter referred to Asian Americans as “Mandarins.” We are shocked by Ms. Coulter’s use of this archaic and inappropriate term to refer to our community, and we are further disappointed that when challenged by fellow guest, Joy Reid, Ms. Coulter refused to correct her problematic usage of this term. The platform provided to Ms. Coulter underscores our frustration regarding the absence of AAPI guests on cable news network programming.
We are reminded of similar incidents, including last month when Representative Peter King used an anti-Japanese American slur during an appearance on MSNBC’s Morning Joe , and was not challenged by anyone on the program for doing so, and when Fox News’ The Five’s then-co-host Bob Beckel (currently an analyst for CNN) used an antiAsian slur on-air to refer to Chinese people in 2014.
More alarming to us, however, is that commentators such as these routinely receive opportunities on your networks to discuss — and, too often, to offend — the AAPI community and other marginalized groups, while members of those same marginalized groups are not presented with similar opportunity to respond. While we understand that a guest’s comments are not generally reflective of the network’s views, it is troubling that representatives from our communities are routinely absent from your networks’ programming.
The topic of Asian American underrepresentation and misrepresentation in Hollywood has been the focus of recent articles in The New York Times and NPR, as well as MSNBC’s own NBC Asian America, and our absence from cable news outlets is cause for similar concern. At nearly 6% of the American population, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders are the fastest-growing racial community in America. Comprising more than 21.8 million Americans, AAPIs are voracious consumers of televised and digital media, spending approximately 30% more of our screen time on websites devoted to news and information compared to the average American. Yet, reports find that Asian Americans constitute less than 3% of guests invited to appear on cable networks’ nightly news or Sunday morning political talk shows, with fewer still identified as Southeast Asian American and/or Pacific Islander. Furthermore, topics explicitly affecting the AAPI community are discussed with even less frequency.
We recognize that MSNBC, CNN and Fox have all made significant investments towards improving overall racial and gender diversity on your networks, but clearly more work remains to be done.
To that end, we urge your networks to consider the message sent to Asian American and Pacific Islander viewers and consumers when non-AAPI analysts use air-time to label Asian Americans with slurs while AAPI commentators are not invited on-air to discuss the AAPI community. We ask that your networks devote more air-time to serious discussion involving the AAPI community and that you commit to significantly increasing the number of AAPI guests who appear on your networks’ shows to discuss these and other issues.
The Asian American and Pacific Islander community is a growing political force in America. We are deeply troubled by recent examples of flippantly offensive comments made towards Asian Americans on cable news, but more importantly we expect that MSNBC, CNN and Fox will take the necessary steps to address the continuing lack of AAPI representation on primetime cable news that permitted such insensitive remarks to be made about the AAPI community in the first place. We propose that such steps to improve AAPI inclusion be discussed in a meeting between your network’s editorial board and representatives of the AAPI community, which we ask to take place within 90 days.
Sincerely,
18 Million Rising
Asian & Pacific Islander American Health Forum (APIAHF)
Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF)
Asian American Psychological Association (AAPA)
Asian Americans Advancing Justice – Asian American Justice Center (AAAJ-AAJC)
Asian Americans Advancing Justice – Asian Law Caucus (AAAJ-ALC)
Asian Americans Advancing Justice – Chicago (AAAJ-Chicago)
Asian Americans Advancing Justice – Los Angeles (AAAJ-LA)
Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance, AFL-CIO (APALA)
Association of Asian Pacific Community Health Organizations (AAPCHO)
Center for APA Women
Japanese American Citizens League (JACL)
Leaders Forum
National Asian / Pacific Islander American Chamber of Commerce & Entrepreneurship (ACE)
National Asian Pacific American Bar Association (NAPABA)
National Asian Pacific American Families Against Substance Abuse (NAPAFASA)
National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum (NAPAWF)
National Council of Asian Pacific Americans (NCAPA)
National Federation of Filipino American Associations (NaFFAA)
National Queer Asian Pacific Islander Alliance (NQAPIA)
OCA – Asian Pacific American Advocates (OCA)
Reappropriate
South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT)
Download a PDF of the full letter here.