Russell Brown has a post up at Public Address revisiting the Chinese-sounding-names debacle in 2015. It’s based on a talk between Brown, bFM reporter Jogai Bhatt and data journalist and former Herald reporter Harkanwal Singh. Singh was working at The Herald when the Chinese sounding names story was run and describes what went on and the problems with how The Herald handled the data and its own white cultural bias. There’s also a good explanation of what data journalism is and how/why it’s important.
Brown describes Singh’s commentary as “polite and pleasant and occasionally pretty brutal on issues of data and diversity”. I found Singh’s descriptions of the problems of having a team of journalists and editors that were predominantly white with only one Asian person particularly erudite (and no, he’s not saying that being white is bad, so please let’s not go there).
This is a difficult issue and set of dynamics for NZ. We have a serious problem with anti-Asian racism. To put it bluntly in the context of this post, if the left/progressives and NZ generally want to have meaningful conversations about migration and/or the housing crisis we need to learn how to do that without being racist. We’re not there yet, but it’s past time we made this a priority. One of the solutions is to listen to what Asian people in NZ have to say and pay attention.
Here’s the video of the talk, but please also read Brown’s post for context. Keith Ng’s post from 2015 is worth (re)reading too.
Moderator note: I’ll be moderating tightly in this thread. Please take note of the part of the Policy that talks about not using tone or language that has the effect of excluding others. The priorities here are to share the PA story and provide a space for discussion that is inclusive. Specifically generalisations about race or ethnicity will be moved and short bans issued where people are unable to make this an inclusive space. Considered comments are welcome. Please read Brown’s post and watch the 11 min video before commenting.
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