This was the featured article in Pacific Ties’s The Dialogue Issue, Winter 2009.
By Evelina Giang
The journalism industry is hurting these days. The Los Angeles Times announced last month that it will be cutting 300 jobs, and many newspapers and magazines are following suit. With the recent cessation of print publication for AsianWeek, the longest-running English-language newspaper for Asian Americans, and with “America’s newspapers narrowing their reach and their ambitions” (according to the Project for Excellence in Journalism), extensive mainstream media coverage of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders is dwindling.
In a time when relevant news coverage is scarce, AAPIs have turned to another outlet.
Weblogs, more commonly known as blogs, have opened an avenue for people to create their own voice. Blogs are more than free online personal journals where writers or “bloggers” can write about their day and give the Internet their two cents. Blogs have become a forum where the voices of AAPIs can be heard, where their talents as singers, artists, film makers and actors can be showcased, and where they can raise awareness of AAPI issues. With a potential audience of over 1.5 billion Internet users, according to Internet World Stats in February, “blogs build awareness of [AAPI issues] that isn’t just limited by geography,” said Professor David K. Song, who teaches the class New Asian American Media at UCLA.
February is drawing to a close and Pacific Ties has pushed out yet another fantastic issue. Fellow online friends and strangers, we have arrived.
