KEY POINTS:
When asked for her opinion on the coverage of Asian issues by mainstream media here, former Television New Zealand journalist Charlotte Glennie said: "It is quite selective, quite stereotyped and I think that is quite dangerous."
Glennie, who is now a Beijing-based correspondent for an Australian network, was back in town to speak at a media seminar I attended last week.
Responding to a question from the floor, Glennie, who has been described as one of the most talented journalists TVNZ has ever had, said she did not think Asian stories happening overseas or locally were being adequately covered.
She got nods of approval from the audience, but I doubt what she said would have had even the slightest effect on mainstream decision-makers in news coverage, many of whom were invited but chose not to attend the seminar organised by the Asia New Zealand Foundation.
But looking through the Herald over the past two weeks, I am hoping that another female in the media may make mainstream media bosses reconsider their approach to Asian news coverage.
Since the face of little Qian Xun, called Pumpkin by the Australian police, first appeared on the front page of this newspaper two weeks ago, new information about her case surfaced daily.
The Herald put a team together to work on the series and, in what could possibly be a first, included reporters from ethnic media and Chinese translators. I was part of the team. With the ethnic reporters providing the inside-community knowledge, translation and links, journalists at the Herald were able to make inroads into the Chinese community, discussion forums and blogs.
Working on the series as a reporter for both mainstream and the ethnic newspaper iBall was an eye-opening experience on its own.
At the same seminar where Glennie spoke, former CNN news anchor Veronica Pedrosa, who is now with al-Jazeera television, spoke of how she clinched an exclusive report from Myanmar with support from its military dictatorship.
"They [the Myanmar Government] said they let us in because they thought we [al-Jazeera] were anti-American," she said.
I, too, had my own al-Jazeera moments when working on the Pumpkin case.
"We talk to you only because you are not just a reporter for Kiwi newspaper. Kiwi newspaper always makes Chinese people look bad," one Chinese community member said.
The Chinese woman's sentiments may well be justified. Trudy Millar, an Otago University student who recently did a study on mainstream news coverage of immigrants, found that they were almost always cast in a bad light.
Looking at the Herald, she found 127 stories on immigrants in the past three years, out of which 62 had content which she classified as portraying them negatively, 36 neutral and only 29 positive stories.
Perhaps in the days when mainstream meant a white European readership, it might not have mattered how immigrants and ethnic minorities were portrayed - but surely with the changing demographics, running stories steered towards making segments of the community look bad is no longer a sensible thing to do.
This is where I think there is a noticeable difference on how the Pumpkin case was reported by the mainstream media. Race and culture were hardly brought into the equation in the reports. Qian Xun was seen as an individual, a New Zealander like the rest of us - and not just a Chinese girl.
It even brought rare praise from National MP Pansy Wong, who said: "I have been pleased to see that the story hasn't focused on Qian Xun's ethnicity. This is a stark contrast to previous stories where ethnicity has been a large focus and the population has been portrayed as a one-image culture or practice."
Even in the reports of Xue Nai Yin, the media has steered away from doing the usual ethnic minority-type reports about race and problems with migrant assimilation, but chose to focus instead on his behaviour, his past and current mental state.
Is this a conscious effort, or is this the result of the closer collaboration between mainstream and ethnic media?
The Herald is not the only mainstream media organisation which engaged the services of ethnic reporters. Mainstream television networks, for example, worked closely with local Chinese television station WTV, which resulted in some good scoops for them.
The result has been exceptional news coverage of a story which could have easily slipped into another negative portrayal of an immigrant community, but turned into one which cuts across racial boundaries, touched every heart and has truly fascinated the public.
Charlotte Glennie said: "I do hope in time that [the coverage of Asian issues by mainstream media] changes."
The Pumpkin stories have shown that there is hope.
* lincoln@iballmedia.co.nz
