Journalist and adjunct professor May Lee worked with School of Journalism Director Gordon Stables to create and begin offering the course in a few weeks for students to take the course in Fall 2021. (Daily Trojan file photo)
In the days and weeks following the Atlanta shooting that killed eight women, six of whom were Asian American, May Lee noticed a stark difference in the media coverage of the event. The coverage, Lee said, by mainstream, predominantly white media outlets, versus that of Korean and other Asian outlets was “very different.”
Lee, a journalist and adjunct professor at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, said that mainstream outlets, unaware of cultural sensitivities and what Asian Americans were going through “skew[ed] the narrative,” dehumanized the victims through hypersexualization and “show[ed] more sympathy toward the shooter than the actual victims,” as in the case with the sheriff spokesman. On the other hand, Asian and Korean media outlets told a more complete and accurate story, Lee said, because of their awareness of cultural sensitivities.