Fox News’ ‘The O’Reilly Factors’ is the most popular cable news program. Among all cable news program, it has been number one for 16 years.
In the program, the ‘Watters’ World’, which is a political satire corner, is also very popular.
However, the NYC Chinatown episode that aired on 5th is getting harshly criticized for the racist content. Many criticize Jesse Watters for not being respectful to Asians saying that he purposely ridiculed Chinese immigrants, who don’t speak English.
On Youtube, the video has reached over a million views, and there were over 10,000 ‘dislikes’ while only 860 people ‘liked’ the video.
During the street interview, Watters asked Asians “Should I bow to say hi to you? and he even asked them to show their Taekwondo skills out of nowhere.
Especially to a Chinese old woman, he asked, “What do you think about Trump, who has criticized China a lot?” and the old woman, who did not seem to speak English, could not say a single word. Also, Fox even aired the scene when another Chinese senior said, “I like Trump. I used to like gambling” to the same question because of confusion between Trump and the card game.
Many Asian politicians are raising their voices to Fox News as a result. On 6th, in front of Fox’s headquarters in Manhattan, NY, Grace Meng (D-Queens) and Ron Kim (D-NY) have requested official apology to Fox News for “caricaturing Asians as non-American cartoon characters”. They also requested to withdraw all of the footage from online websites.
Asian politicians in Southern California also joined the criticism. Councilman David Ryu and Judy Chu (D-CA) requested official apologies to Fox News. Ryu said that “as both Asian and an immigrant, I am greatly disappointed by Fox News. It is something they should apologize immediately”.
Meanwhile, Jesse Watters wrote on his Twitter: “My man-on-the-street interviews are meant to be taken as tongue-in-cheek and I regret if anyone found offense.”
Original article available at http://www.koreadaily.com/news/read.asp?art_id=4657605
Translated by Audrey Joung
