News outlets contribute to anti-Asian racism with careless stock photos on coronavirus coverage - Media Matters for America
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The spread of the novel coronavirus strain COVID-19 has been accompanied by a dramatic increase in anti-Asian discrimination across the U.S., and news stories featuring photos of people of Asian descent unrelated to the context of the reporting help to perpetuate this racism.
During the past couple of months, people of Asian descent have been physicallyattacked due to racist associations with the coronavirus outbreak, which reportedly originated in Wuhan, China. In other instances, people have been harassed on trains and on subways. Businesses have been hurt as well, as customers have begun to avoid establishments associated with the Asian community.
Given the uptick in anti-Asian discrimination, the Asian American Journalists Association recently provided news outlets with guidelines about what to avoid when reporting on coronavirus. In particular, AAJA warned that context-free images of people of Asian descent wearing face masks could help to spread anti-Asian racism by associating them with the disease. The guidelines explain that people often wear face masks in Asian countries to protect themselves from pollution and for other reasons that have nothing to do with the current spread of coronavirus.
Users on Twitter observed that tweets from news outlets such as The Hill and the New York Post featured images of people wearing face masks that were completely unrelated to the accompanying reporting. For example, New York state Sen. Alessandra Biaggi noted that a New York Post article on the first case of coronavirus reported in Manhattan included an image of a man of Asian descent wearing a face mask in Queens.
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