Respected reporters and key journalism figures from all over the country converged at San Francisco State University on Feb. 1 to celebrate the Center for Integration and Improvement of Journalism’s 15th Anniversary Fundraiser.
Listen to Cristina Azocar discuss what being named a local hero means to her and the importance of American Indian Heritage month.
The Few, the Proud, the Asian Male Anchor
Hari Sreenivasan of ABC News Live strives to overcome being a novelty
by Reinalyn Ramos
Hari Sreenivasan is anchor/correspondent for ABC News Live, the first 24-hour news network for a broadband audience. From 1996-2002, he was an anchor, senior correspondent and reporter based in San Francisco for CNET. Prior to CNET, Sreenivasan was a technology reporter for WNCN, the NBC affiliate in Raleigh, N.C. He is a national board member of the South Asian Journalists' Association and a graduate of the Asian American Journalists Association's Executive Leadership Program.
A: I think Iíd been working in high school as a disc jockey and I made the switch in college. We were just getting out of the Gulf War and everyone seemed to have an opinion on how the media was to blame. I realized, you canít blame everything on the media. It's a distribution tool of information, at least television is. And Apu from the Simpsons, he's the Indian man who runs the Kwik E Mart, was the most popular South Asian character at the time and that was really kind of tragic. I thought, there has to be some Indian newscasters somewhere who can cover Indian news and get our names right. I felt I owed it to myself and my community.
A: The University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington.
A: I think that at certain times, I was the novelty. When one thinks of Asian males, doctors, engineers, cab drivers, or service-oriented workers come to mind. Seattle had a few Asian broadcasters, but they were women, not males, and if there were males, they were not on camera. The biggest obstacle was that there weren't people who blazed the trail for you. You had to figure certain things out for yourself.
A: The general immigrant mentality is that they want their children to have stable careers, such as in medicine or law, which are financially great. They want something better for their children than what they had for themselves, which usually means being financially successful. They've heard that Dan Rather makes a lot of money, but they think, "My son's not going to be a Dan Rather." So they push their sons into other careers. In the newsroom, Blacks, Hispanics, and Asian females were represented. I was really something of an anomaly. I was a male, but I wasn't Black or Hispanic. I was Asian, but I wasnít a female.
A: I'm proud, but a little bit lonely. I'm glad to be here, but I wish there were more of us. It's a hard pipeline to go through to get Asian males in the business, and then to go in front of a camera, assuming they are talented and can do the job. I love my work, and I'm happy that the South Asian and Asian community are represented by me. There's literally another army of Asian women out there. Men are slowly increasing, but the numbers are very low in terms of the Asian male to women broadcasters.
A: I'm glad there are vehicles to quantify the situation. That way when we say, "There are hardly any Asian male broadcasters," it's not just anecdotal. And it's not just Asian males either. There is a very low number of minorities in broadcasting. I'm not happy with the results of course, but itís a good benchmark. AAJA is being really proactive about the results, producing a DVD to showcase Asian male broadcasters to give to news directors to show them and say, "Hey we're here and we're good."
A: Well that's a dual purpose aside from grabbing the attention of news directors. I'm pretty psyched about the DVD. I didn't even think there were that many Asian male broadcasters. This shows people that there are Asian male broadcasters out there, and look where they are - they're all over. That kicks ass. I'm glad we're being proactive about it [increasing the number of Asian males in broadcasting.]
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