CNN anchor mocks Indian American spelling bee champion

"We're not sure that it's root is in Sanskrit, which is what you're probably, uh, used to using."



Look, this isn't hard. An on-air interview with the winner of the National Spelling Bee. Ask her how she prepared, what it felt like to win, and what she's going to do now. Don't say anything racist.

That seems simple enough, right? Not quite.

Last week, CNN anchors Alisyn Camerota and Chris Cuomo were interviewing 12-year-old Ananya Vinya, the newly crowned Scripps National Spelling Bee champion, when they challenged her to spell "covfefe." Ha ha. The infamously inexplicable word recently tweeted by Donald Trump. Funny... I guess?

But then after going through the motions of this inane bit, Camerota attempts to explain the "origin" of the word to Vinay, telling her "But it is a nonsense word but we're not sure that it's root is in Sanskrit which is what you're probably, uh, used to using."

Fox News Airs Appallingly Racist anti-Asian Segment

By Jenn Fang. Cross-Posted from Reappropriate.


Jesse Watters interviews people in NYC's Chinatown during a segment that aired on October 3, 2016.
(Photo credit: Fox News)
This is a new low, even for Fox News.

Earlier this week, Fox's O'Reilly Factor aired a jaw-droppingly racist segment about Asian Americans as part of its “Watters' World” features. In it, Fox correspondent Jesse Watters traveled to New York City's Chinatown under the auspices of discovering what Asian American voters thought about Donald trump and the presidential election.

Rather than to approach pollsters and researchers who professionally study Asian Americans' and Pacific Islanders' political attitudes — and who released an updated report this week on AAPI opinions, showing low support among AAPIs for the Republican Party and the race-baiting of the Trump campaign — Watters instead went for a man-on-the-street approach.

Actually, correction: Jesse Watters went for a holy-crap-that's-so-racist-man-on-the-street approach. Because, why bother with investigative journalism when you can instead fill five minutes pretending to report about a growing but largely overlooked elecorate by being an offensive, annoying asshole to total strangers?