Asian American groups and reporters are crying foul at Fox News correspondent Jesse Watters for a recent segment in which he visited Manhattan's Chinatown.
In the segment, which aired Monday night during "The O'Reilly Factor," Watters went to Chinatown and asked people on the street questions about everything from who they are voting for, to whether they knew Karate and whether the watches one man was selling were "hot."
But criticism of the segment began to mount steadily, and by Tuesday night the piece was picked up and slammed in outlets like Vox, Esquire and GQ. Many Asian-American journalists reacted with disgust on Twitter, and the Asian American Legal Defense Fund tweeted, "Seriously, can this @FoxNews @oreillyfactor piece with interviews in NY #Chinatown be any more racist?"
The Asian American Journalists Association issued statement calling the segment "rude, offensive, mocking, derogatory and damaging." Bill O'Reilly called the segment "gentle fun," but even he seemed to predict trouble, noting on air after the segment that he expected a lot of letters.
"It’s 2016. We should be far beyond tired, racist stereotypes and targeting an ethnic group for humiliation and objectification on the basis of their race. Sadly, Fox News proves it has a long way to go in reporting on communities of color in a respectful and fair manner," Paul Cheung, AAJA President said in a statement demanding an apology from Fox News. "Fox missed a real opportunity to investigate the Asian American vote, a topic not often covered in mainstream news."
This is far from Watters' first foray into questionable territory with his ambush interviews and man-on-the-street segments. Watters has done segments on everything from gay pride parades, to racism (he visited Harlem in a similarly constructed segment that also drew severe criticism), to a piece about homeless people. But to many in the media business he is most famous for following a reporter around for hours to get an ambush interview, according to Huffington Post's Amanda Terkel.
A Fox News spokesperson did not have a direct response to the statements from the Asian American groups, instead pointing to and interview Watters did earlier this year where he said that he "doesn't want to hurt anybody's feelings" and just wants to "listen to them and have them share with me their thoughts and opinions in a way that doesn't come across as mean."
Date: October 5th, 2016 10:01 PM Author: Copper church building macaca
flame. flushing and sunset park chinatowns are larger, but mfh chinatown still has tens of thousands of chinee living 5 to a room in crumbling vermin-infested rent-controlled tenements with bathtubs in the kitchen.
Date: October 5th, 2016 10:03 PM Author: Balding sex offender internal respiration
*libs cheer as all of the top 100 colleges, law schools, and medical schools in the country bump every Asian person's test scores down by 10 percentile points solely on the basis of racial stereotypes*
Date: October 6th, 2016 4:42 AM Author: Impertinent concupiscible stead
Imagine if MSNBC did something abt white trash rednecks or "christians" like this, reptiles wld be up in arms, yet they defend this cause they are racists
It's also lulzy that the martial arts scene appears to be in a Korean Taekwondo place, it's not fuking Chinese , lol at white amerikkkan trash the most pathetic ppl in the world
Date: October 6th, 2016 1:02 PM Author: Glittery Awkward University Gay Wizard
as i said, it plays on stereotypes. but it's not racist. explain how it's racist? the chinese interviewees were almost all anti-Trump and libs agree only deplorable whites would vote for Trump. also, if you go to NYC chinatown you will literally find chinese people who have been here 30+ years and still don't speak a lick of english in addition to many FOBS.
Date: October 6th, 2016 1:05 PM Author: Glittery Awkward University Gay Wizard
libs have no humor, tho. and a double standard to boot. the same ppl objecting to this segment laugh their ass off when John Oliver does segments that play on outdated shitlib stereotypes and ridicule white working class-types