5 thoughts on “Secret Asian Man weighs in on media coverage of the tsunami”
great little piece from the secret asian man…the interesting thing is that the only place where the photos of asian deaths are even more gruesome, is Asia itself…traveling through India in the aftermath of the tsunami, I saw some of the most gruesome photography in my life, front page in most of the country’s major newspapers…right next to photos of Australians ‘bravely’ surfing in Thailand right after the calamity…
It seems the bias exists in the US as well as in Asia (at least in India)..
whatever this dude would complain if there wasn’t any coverage
he’s just angry and looking for an excuse
You have him confused with somebody else. You must be thinking of Angry Asian Man. This is Secret Asian Man. Saying “He’s just secret and looking for an excuse” doesn’t make much sense, does it.
And of course there would be coverage of this – alot of white people on beaches in Thailand had exotic near death experiences. To show how close their call was, you have to show mountains of bloated brown and yellow bodies and crushed villages so that we can appreciate just how lucky they were to survive their exotic experience in the third world.
How about no dead bodies.
Or how about realizing that showing dead white tourists would not be as effective in eliciting donations to charities. “Those folks were on holiday — and they’re much skinnier than me, so clearly they’ve got the cash for personal trainers! Why should I give money for THAT?”
On the other hand, showing a mother standing in the wreckage of the shack she lived in, with her dead child in her arms – well, let’s just say that’s more likely to bring home to American readers/viewers that the tsunami victims probably do need some serious help in the form of cash donations. It’s a matter of telegraphing the need in the space of a few short inches (or seconds). And, at the risk of repeating myself, photos of dead tourists, while shocking, wouldn’t have that impact. Though, if I go by the same logic that the cartoonist uses — that Americans think of foreigners as not fully human — then pics of dead American tourists would probably sell more papers. After all, those poor foreigners are always dying from some catastrophe or another (or so the average American would think, if we assume — a big IF — that Americans are as a whole as crass and incapable of higher mental functions as the cartoonist believes); thus the sensational “shock” value of dead tourists would prove a quicker sell.
So, all in all, it seems to me like, if the cartoonist’s logic is correct, his argument is wrong: the decision to focus on non-white people actually goes against “good sense” for profit-driven media.
(…I do understand the point of the cartoon, and I think the protest is generally a valid one, but in this case, it seems a bit facile for my taste.)
Would The Times have run the picture if the dead were Americans? Can you imagine a five-column color picture on Page 1 of The Times of dead American children?
great little piece from the secret asian man…the interesting thing is that the only place where the photos of asian deaths are even more gruesome, is Asia itself…traveling through India in the aftermath of the tsunami, I saw some of the most gruesome photography in my life, front page in most of the country’s major newspapers…right next to photos of Australians ‘bravely’ surfing in Thailand right after the calamity…
It seems the bias exists in the US as well as in Asia (at least in India)..
whatever this dude would complain if there wasn’t any coverage
he’s just angry and looking for an excuse
You have him confused with somebody else. You must be thinking of Angry Asian Man. This is Secret Asian Man. Saying “He’s just secret and looking for an excuse” doesn’t make much sense, does it.
And of course there would be coverage of this – alot of white people on beaches in Thailand had exotic near death experiences. To show how close their call was, you have to show mountains of bloated brown and yellow bodies and crushed villages so that we can appreciate just how lucky they were to survive their exotic experience in the third world.
How about no dead bodies.
Or how about realizing that showing dead white tourists would not be as effective in eliciting donations to charities. “Those folks were on holiday — and they’re much skinnier than me, so clearly they’ve got the cash for personal trainers! Why should I give money for THAT?”
On the other hand, showing a mother standing in the wreckage of the shack she lived in, with her dead child in her arms – well, let’s just say that’s more likely to bring home to American readers/viewers that the tsunami victims probably do need some serious help in the form of cash donations. It’s a matter of telegraphing the need in the space of a few short inches (or seconds). And, at the risk of repeating myself, photos of dead tourists, while shocking, wouldn’t have that impact. Though, if I go by the same logic that the cartoonist uses — that Americans think of foreigners as not fully human — then pics of dead American tourists would probably sell more papers. After all, those poor foreigners are always dying from some catastrophe or another (or so the average American would think, if we assume — a big IF — that Americans are as a whole as crass and incapable of higher mental functions as the cartoonist believes); thus the sensational “shock” value of dead tourists would prove a quicker sell.
So, all in all, it seems to me like, if the cartoonist’s logic is correct, his argument is wrong: the decision to focus on non-white people actually goes against “good sense” for profit-driven media.
(…I do understand the point of the cartoon, and I think the protest is generally a valid one, but in this case, it seems a bit facile for my taste.)
A letter in the NYT: