CHATTING WITH JOHN CHO

cho gets serious

I was really happy to be able to do this; I knew John as a classmate from UC Berkeley - *15 years ago* - and I've taken a lot of pleasure in seeing his career accelerate over that time. I finally had the opportunity to interview him and at the risk of sounding immodest, I thought it was a great conversation, especially with his candor about issues of acting, media and race.

Here's Part 1 of our interview, part 2 is here.

--O.W.

MARC COOPER CHARTS THE LA WEEKLY'S DECLINE

Marc Cooper is a long-time, L.A.-based journalist who worked at the LA Weekly (among other publications) for many years. In a recent blog post, Cooper performs an "autopsy" on the Weekly, explaining how the paper's buy-out from the New Times/Village Voice company pretty much drove a stake through its heart that's been destroying the publication, slowly by surely. Cooper's inside view should be taken with the understanding that his is not what you'd call a wholly objective opinion - his utter disdain for some people isn't veiled at all - but for those of us interested in how/why print journalism has been in decline, it's a sobering analysis.

I've written for the LA Weekly, off and on, since around 2000 and much of what Cooper addresses hasn't been so transparent to me mostly because the changes that have happened rarely impact the music section in terms of content (dedicated pages is another story tough). Reading this through and one wonders if there are any good weeklies left out there. I hope my old stomping ground - the SF Bay Guardian - has been doing well, especially in this economy. (Credit: M. Matos)

--O.W.

ASIAN WEEK BOWS OUT

another one bites the digital dust

Just read this on Angry Asian Man: looks like Asian Week, is ceasing publication as a print publication and instead, will go web-only.

This shouldn't be a huge surprise given the current climate for print newspapers - even without the global meltdown, any newspaper would have its challenges and I'm assuming the further disappearance of ad dollars has only exacerbated the issue.

Asian Week - which has been in print for well over 20 years - has long inspired ambivalent reactions from the Asian American community. As AAM points out, the insane Kenneth Eng debacle from last year was a huge black eye on their editorial process, but long before that, Asian Week often came under fire...less for their content and more because their publishers - the Fangs - have political ties (to the GOP) that those on the Left called into question.

Provided, I don't read the paper with any regularity but my own history with them goes back around 15 years and over that time, I always found their news coverage on AA issues to be exceptional, especially in looking at stories that otherwise would go ignored via mainstream press. Whatever the politics of their owners, I don't recall seeing that creep into their editorial content.

I have a special place in my heart for Asian Week since it's where I got my start as a "professional" journalist, back in 1994 when they gave me a column to write (thankfully, very little of it still available online) despite not having much previous experience. That only lasted a year or so but it was a good place to start, especially with the kind of freedom I had to muse. Later in the '90s, I started writing feature stories on them on Asian American arts and culture and I always considered it an important place to start honing my craft as a journalist and writer.

So part of me is sad to see the paper go the way of so many other publications. Hopefully, they can continue to contribute solid reporting via an online presence but for the old schooler that I can be, I'm mourning a little today.

--O.W.

WHAT IS WRONG WITH CNN?

wolf blitzer goes undercover

I was vaguely tolerant of all their useless bells and whistles for most of the evening but when they hologrammed in Will.I.Am, I knew it was time to change the channel. Even the barking frat boys at MSNBC (poor Rachel "Sidelined" Maddows) seemed preferable.

--O.W.

ENOUGH WITH POLITICS, LET'S TALK BIG MEDIA!

Ok, this helped deflate some of the tension of the day:

"Jacksonville DJ quits live on air"

--O.W.

FORGET LEBRON AND KING KONG, IT'S OBAMA'S TURN

--O.W.

WHAT WAS VOGUE THINKING?

smoking gun?

Harry Allen - the OG Media Assassin - has been on top of this LeBron/Vogue controversy for a minute now and recently posted up what he claims is the original inspiration for that Vogue cover.

There might be some teensy wiggle room that this could be "just a coincidence" but that's a hard argument to tow and what Allen points out is especially damning is the silence coming from the magazine and photographer themselves.

Question: this is a real suspect look for Vogue and Leibovitz but when's the last time the fashion industry really made a good look when it came to race? Or gender? Or class? The idea that Vogue would do something racially inane is about as surprising as, say, gender inequality in mainstream Hollywood film. Which isn't to say that we shouldn't be outraged and pissed off and vocal but what's the realistic end game here? I get the feeling that Vogue and the Leibovitz will just ride the storm out unless this somehow gets elevated to Imusian levels (paging Oprah! Paging LeBron's political consciousness, if it even exists!).

By the way, do listen to that NPR piece by Peter Sagal, bashing Horton Hears a Hoo for being yet another example of Hollywood's rampant and oft-ignored sexism. Daughters of the world, unite!

--O.W.

CAN'T BLAME HIP-HOP ON THIS ONE (OR CAN YOU?)

From the NY Times
April 24, 2007
CBS Radio Show Hosts Suspended After Prank Call
By JACQUES STEINBERG

CBS Radio suspended two hosts from an FM station in New York City today after an Asian-American advocacy organization complained about the broadcast of a six-minute prank phone call to a Chinese restaurant that was peppered with ethnic and sexual slurs.

The call was first played on “The Dog House With JV and Elvis,” a midmorning show on WFNY, on April 5, the day after Don Imus made his comment about the Rutgers women’s basketball team on WFAN, another CBS-owned station. The call was then replayed on “The Dog House” on Thursday, a week after Mr. Imus was fired by CBS Radio.

In the skit, a series of apparently unsuspecting employees of a Chinese restaurant are berated by a caller who tells one woman he would like to “come to your restaurant” to see her naked, especially a part of her body he refers to as “hot, Asian, spicy.” The caller also attempts to order “flied lice,” brags of his prowess in kung fu and repeatedly curses at several employees.

In a statement on Sunday, the four New York-area chapters of the Organization of Chinese Americans, an advocacy group, demanded an apology from the show’s two hosts and from CBS Radio, and called for the firing of the hosts and their producer.

In an interview today before the suspensions were announced, Vicki Shu Smolin, president of the organization’s New York City chapter, said she was mystified that CBS would allow the call to be broadcast in the first place and then would permit it to be replayed in the aftermath of the Imus incident. (“The Dog House” has been waging a broad campaign in support of Mr. Imus both on the show and on its Web site.)

“I just see plain ignorance in the CBS management — of the community, of who we are, of what we’re all about,” Ms. Shu Smolin said. “If they don’t fire the D.J.’s, it will be a double standard.”

She promised to rip a page from the playbook of the Rev. Al Sharpton, who led the charge for Mr. Imus’s dismissal, by staging protests of CBS Radio and boycotting advertisers on WFNY.

“They don’t think they’re going to get any backlash from the Asian-American community,” she said. “They’re definitely wrong.”

In an e-mail message sent this afternoon, a spokeswoman for CBS Radio, Karen Mateo, said that the two hosts, Jeff Vandergrift (JV) and Dan Lay (Elvis), had been suspended “without pay until further notice.” Mr. Vandergrift, Ms. Mateo said, had apologized on today’s show. The show, which began on WFNY (92.3 FM) in January 2006, can be heard outside the New York City market only via the Internet.

Ms. Shu Smolin said she first learned of the “Dog House” broadcast on Saturday, in an article published by Ming Pao, a Chinese-language daily newspaper in New York. She said her organization had since sent e-mail messages to the general manager and program director of WFNY voicing its concerns, but had to resort to regular mail to reach Leslie Moonves, the president and chief executive of CBS.

“I can’t get any contact info on him,” she said.

It was, she acknowledged, an indication that her organization was not yet as media savvy as Mr. Sharpton’s.

--O.W.