Julian Perez-Garcia (979779)

Pd. 3
ASIANS IN THE NEWS
For this project, my group and I had to look at how one group is represented in the news,
and then investigate all facets of this question: how the group was portrayed, how often this
group was written about, who wrote about them, in what part of the paper they were most likely
to be found, and whether the coverage was positive or negative in a general sense.
My group was assigned Asians, so we immediately set out brainstorming. We knew, upon
first sitting down, that Asians are heavily underrepresented in the news. Whether this was a
product of American disinterest in the Asian world or simply a product of lots of a things
happening in the United States, we did not know; however, we did know that most of the
coverage of the Asian continent in the news was focused on the Middle East. It is clear to see
why this is the case, as we are currently embroiled in a war in that region. Without even reading
the newspaper, we also knew that almost all of that coverage is focused on war happenings, or
attacks. Again, we did not know whether this biased coverage was because that news makes for
sensational headlines or whether it was because little else of note happened in that region. Many
of the questions that came up during early brainstorming helped guide researching and also
helped guide the making of our project.
When looking on the Washington Post for stories, it quickly became apparent that all of
the stories were either about violent attacks in the Middle East or the democracy protests in Hong
Kong. In most other cases, the coverage tended to be superficial, such as in the case of Thailand,
where almost all of the news we found had little impact on Thailand or even the United States.
Doing this research of trends in Asian news coverage made me realize something very
sad: that most of the preconceptions and resulting stereotypes made by many Americans of

Julian Perez-Garcia (979779)

Pd. 3
people in Asia are created by or are reinforced by the stories that newspapers are often quick to
print.
From this basic knowledge, my group was able to draft this thesis statement: The news
media perpetuates negative stereotypes in the Middle East, and reporting is focused on two
extremes for the rest of Asia: either it is biased towards governmental stories, often influenced by
American democratic ideals; or it focuses on superficial stories. However, Asians are as a whole
underrepresented in the news. This statement reflects everything we found in research, and how
most of the substantive stories were focused on two small areas.
This project also made me realize the exaggerated amount of importance we put on
terrorist attacks in the Middle East. While these stories are undoubtedly important, the divide in
quantity spent on violent stories compared to all stories about the region is a large one. These
stories make us believe there is much more violence than there is in reality in the Middle East,
and may be the most prominent but subtle supporter of the stereotype that this is a consistently
violent region. Only seeing stories that are violent about a region go a long way in peoples final
assessment of a region, and as a result of that, play a large part in possibly stereotyping millions
of people.
In a similar fashion, this project helped me appreciate how much American democracy
shapes the way we see the rest of the world. This is especially important in Hong Kong, where
up until recently, pro-democracy protesters were blocking streets in the Chinese city to protest
abuses from the communist Chinese government. This is a prime example of American news
media focusing on stories that appeal to the average Americans sense of pride in their
democracy. While many Americans dont fully understand what a democracy is, they still take
pride in the fact that they live in one, and are quick to see other democratic countries as friends

Julian Perez-Garcia (979779)

Pd. 3
or allies in the struggle against alternative forms of government (this could stem from stilluneasy relations between capitalism and communism that remain from the late 1900s). For this
reason, the American news media is covering Hong Kong more diligently than they normally
would. Again, this is not to say that this isnt an objectively important event, but nonetheless, our
coverage of it is aggrandized by the fact that these protesters are pro-democracy, and not prosocialism, or pro-monarchy.
If I were to say one thing that I truly understood because of this project, it would be the
subtle influence of how the news we see can greatly affect how we see whole groups. Ill be
perfectly honest: my perception of the Middle East was that it is a much more violent place than
it actually is, just by nature of the stories that are often presented in the Post. While these sorts of
prejudices are hard to rid yourself of, the best way to start is usually through the absorption of asobjective-as-possible knowledge. For me, this assignment helped me to start down that path, and
start thinking to myself: does the news truly tell the whole story? From this assignment alone, I
would say it doesnt, and still has a long way to go until it does.