The Coronavirus Story Gave Me Purpose
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KGO Anchor Dion Lim says that the coronavirus story has given her purpose.
She wrote this Op-ed piece for the San Francisco Chronicle and her station:
A number of months back the burnout from being a broadcast journalist was beginning to set in. Covering wildfires and mass shootings was mentally taxing enough, but the demands of keeping up on social media (and its trolls) where information is traded at the speed of light was beginning to take its toll. Would my purpose one day be to chase what was trending like National Pretzel Day to get clicks and likes? The president wasn’t making the job any easier either, coining the term “fake news,” which was adopted by many and shouted out by strangers while I reported in the field.
I was afraid of losing my worth as a journalist and becoming just another talking head on TV.
Then the coronavirus happened.
There was already a bad case of anti-Asian sentiment in the Bay Area, documented in high-profile attacks. The 89-year-old great-grandmother who was brutally beaten on a playground and left to die in Visitacion Valley.
The empty soda can collector, assaulted in the Bayview, humiliated and his recyclables stolen.
The mom walking through San Francisco’s Stockton Tunnel and pistol-whipped and dragged on the sidewalk in broad daylight for her purse with less than $100 inside.
All of the victims: Asian American.
While covering these stories, law enforcement would tell me they knew criminals were targeting this population because of the language barrier. Culturally Asians would be less apt to file police reports or speak out. As the daughter of immigrants from Taiwan and Hong Kong I was raised to work hard, keep my head down and nose clean, and to not to cause controversy. My mother never reported the countless times people would yell slurs at her or throw eggs at her window when she first moved to America and landed in Texas. She even sent me an email one day instructing me to stop highlighting bad things happening to the Chinese.
But with each story I reported, the fire burning in my gut to do more grew stronger.
When the coronavirus outbreak began, the flames exploded into anger.
Friends recounted instances of being told to “go back to your sick country” or overhearing others accuse them of eating bats. The president of the United States and certain media outlets continued to use the term “Chinese virus.”
Prior to coming to San Francisco, I was the first Asian American main anchor in Charlotte, N.C., and Florida’s Tampa Bay area, constantly replying to viewers who called me “Connie Chung” or asked in tweets if I was “made in China.” The only person I had to stand up for was myself. But with the coronavirus, I had a chance to be an ally for the hundreds of thousands of people in the Bay Area and the millions across the globe facing even more blatant racism — by telling their stories.
The support from Asian Americans from around the globe who sent messages of thanks that finally someone was listening and fighting to give them representation in the mainstream media was overwhelming. This in turn empowered others to share their stories of injustice. Even if it was confiding in me through a direct message on Twitter or sending a video through Facebook. This was their way of speaking out. They were afraid to do it themselves or didn’t have the audience but knew I could be their communication pipeline to the world.
But it’s not just me. It’s social media powerhouses like Bay Area Instagram users @AsiansNeverDie and @Jackfroot leveraging their massive followings to highlight xenophobia. Facebook group and nonprofit Asian Hustle Network teamed up with civil rights groups to start the hashtag trend #HateIsAVirus. It has prompted celebrities to join the movement, which has attracted more than 2 million online impressions. Korean American rap duo Year of the Ox even laid down lyrics about their own experiences with prejudice spliced between videos in my news stories. Never have our voices been louder.
While the conversation around racism and coronavirus is happening, there’s still a long way to go. Those shouts of “fake news!” won’t stop, nor will the need to feed the beast that is the World Wide Web with entertaining content. But these days those issues don’t feel as burdensome now that I know my purpose as an Asian American journalist.
