Fox Sports sent comedy writer Bob Oschack (Late Night with Craig Ferguson and Mind of Mencia) to USC as a reporter. And what happened? Asian students became the targets of some very bad humor.
Oschack went to USC as an “investigate reporter” to interview students about the Pac-12 Conference for the 2011 college football season. But instead he mostly made fun of Asian students who either didn’t know anything about football or those who had some pronunciation trouble.
“Oshack only interviewed Asian USC students—because in the world of misguided network television humor, foreign accents and unfamiliarity with good old-fashioned football is funny,” Emma Carmichael wrote on Deadspin.com.
Racialicious.com’s Arturo García asked readers if they were ready for some college football racism, he says the video turns the students in to just simply “others.”
More specifically, Oschack - a comedy writer by trade, if you’re generous enough to call Mind of Mencia “comedy” - focused his mock-report on what appeared to be international students who weren’t football fans. I say “appeared to be” because the students are given a textbook Othering: they’re never identified, nor are their studies mentioned.Fox Sports head of media relations Lou D’Ermilio sent Deadspin.com a statement apologizing for the video.
We sincerely apologize to President [C. L. Max] Nikias and the entire USC community for the production and posting of the video. The context was clearly inappropriate and the video was removed as soon as we became aware of it. We will review our editorial process to determine where the breakdown occurred, and we will take steps to ensure something like this never happens again.Fox Sports has since removed the video from its website, YouTube, and Hulu.
MediaMatters.org pointed out Asian students made up 21.6 percent of the undergraduate student body last fall at USC and international students made up 11.2 percent:
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