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Mr. Michael Fancher
Dear Mr. Fancher:
We are writing to express our disappointment about a Seattle Times headline that appeared the morning after Sarah Hughes won the gold medal in women’s figure skating at the Winter Olympics. While we appreciate your publication’s swift response in correcting the inflammatory headline that implied skater Michelle Kwan is not American, we hope that you understand our concern that this headline should have never made it to print especially since another media outlet made this same mistake four years ago. We hope that you will use this opportunity to further discussion among your staff and continue your efforts to educate them on the importance of diversity and cultural sensitivity. The Seattle Times has always been on the forefront of diversity issues and is a strong supporter of AAJA. We hope that relationship will continue to grow and pledge to work with you on facilitating understanding among your staff and in the community when these situations do arise.
Sincerely,
AAJA Seattle
Michelle Kwan
Headline Controversy Continues to Haunt Us By Rene M.
Astudillo In 1998, American
figure skater Tara Lipinski beat fellow American Michelle Kwan to capture the
gold medal at the Nagano Winter Olympics. A headline announcing the upset
victory on the MSNBC Web site read, "American Beats Out Kwan." Four years later,
in Salt Lake City, Kwan — again favored to win gold — loses out to fellow
American Sarah Hughes and Russian skater Irina Slutskaya. History is
repeated, and I'm not just talking gold medals. The day after the women's figure
skating finals in Salt Lake City, The Seattle Times' sports page ran a
controversial secondary headline on its lead story about the gold-medal skating
performance of Sarah Hughes. It read, "American outshines Kwan, Slutskaya in
skating surprise. Prompted by
numerous reader complaints that the heading implied that Michelle Kwan was not
an American, The Seattle Times immediately issued an apology — first on
its web site, then in next day's edition of the paper — about what it called a
"misunderstanding." The Times
explained that the headline was in two parts, the main headline reading "Hughes
good as gold." The apology went on to say that "… the writer was attempting to
find another word for 'Hughes' in order not to repeat her name in the second
head." The apology further claims that the headline was written quickly on
deadline. Also on February
22, the San Francisco Chronicle ran a front-page story on the figure
skating finals. In the jump page, staff writer John Crumpacker made reference to
the 1998 Olympic competition by saying that, "And Kwan, who persevered for the
past four years after losing out on the Olympic gold medal to American Tara
Lipinski in Nagano, glumly settled for the bronze medal this time …" I wrote a letter to the editor
expressing concern
about the implication in that statement that Kwan was not an American, just like
the MSNBC headline implied in 1998. Admittedly and in hindsight, I missed the
first reference to Kwan in the third paragraph of the news story. It said,
"Skating after Hughes, the two favorites, American Michelle Kwan and Russian
Irina Slutskaya …" Chronicle
assistant executive editor Narda Zacchino pointed out that "A careful reading
of the story would make clear that the nationality of each skater is stated with
the first identification of that skater, so that when Tara Lipinski is
mentioned, we tell the readers that she is American, just as we told them
earlier in the first references that Kwan is American and Sarah Hughes is
American and Slutskaya is Russian." By the rules of
editing, the Chronicle did not err. But other readers and members of the
Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA) saw an issue beyond editorial
correctness. Hayley Sterling, former AAJA Washington, D.C. chapter president,
says that "The fact that the line stood out for many of us, should be reason
enough to make issue of it. I agree with another writer — it would've been more
accurate and informative and perhaps less confusing to some readers if the
sentence read 'fellow-American' Tara Lipinski." Ti-Hua Chang of
the AAJA New York chapter suggested that the Chronicle should be more
sensitive to the previous flap with the MSNBC headline. "Given that history and
context, SF Chronicle should have added one more word "fellow" to
American Tara Lipinski," Chang added. Another
Chronicle staffer, David de la Fuente maintains that " the phrase
questioned is not a mistake of apparent omission (as would be the case if the
story never mentioned Kwan being an American) or apparent commission (as was the
case with the 1998 MSNBC headline …"). De la Fuente
asserts further: "Michelle Kwan has been in the spotlight for several years now.
She is not the fresh-faced and relatively unfamiliar newcomer she was in 1988,
and I sincerely doubt that there are very many people who were interested enough
in skating to a) read that article or b) watch that competition who did not know
she is an American." Agreed. But if so
much controversy was generated by the San Francisco Chronicle story
beyond just readers missing references to Kwan as American, there must be an
issue here. If there are enough people complaining about inappropriate headlines
such as the one ran by The Seattle Times — and prompting an apology from
a respected newspaper — then we know readers get involved in what they read and
writers and editors should be more sensitive to the things they print.
Part of AAJA's
core mission is to be vigilant about fair and accurate coverage of Asian
Americans and Asian American issues. The real issue here is not Michelle Kwan,
but all Americans of different racial and ethnic heritage who have long been
"tokenized" and who have historically been relegated to a "second-class" citizen
status. Many Asian Americans have had this experience, including many of our own
journalist-members. But we must also remember that there are thousands of other
Asian American readers who don't care about editorial correctness and who
constantly bear the insult and hurt caused by even the slightest suggestion or
implication that they are less American than their fellow Americans.
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During the Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City, AAJA Seattle's Media Watch
was alerted to a headline in The Seattle Times. Many readers were concerned with
the Times' headline "Hughes good as gold: American outshines Kwan, Slutskaya in skating surprise."
The Seattle AAJA chapter sent a letter to executive editor Mike Fancher expressing disappointment at the headline.
The chapter also brought
the headline to the attention of the national AAJA Media Watch group. The Times has
apologized for the headline. The following is a copy of the letter from AAJA Seattle and a report by AAJA's executive director.