By Kai Curry
NORTHWEST ASIAN WEEKLY
There’s something special about local news media. And we’re not just saying that. The people who choose to open local news outlets are not just entrepreneurs or journalists—though they are both of those. They are members of the community who often make the choice because they care.
From left: Christina Shih, associate director, Press Forward, at the podium; Kishor Panthi, founder and editor-in-chief, Khasokhas; Macy Yang, founder and editor, Hmong Daily News; and Xiaoyuan Su, founder and CEO, Chinese Radio Seattle. Photo by Kai Curry
At the Asian American Journalists Association convention that just wrapped up in Seattle, four people who fit all of these descriptions gathered on Aug. 1 to discuss the importance of community to founders of local television and radio. The session was titled “Rooted in community: Lessons from local news founders.” One of those founders, Xiaoyuan Su, is very familiar to Washingtonians as the person who started Chinese Radio Seattle (chineseradioseattle.com). Su founded the station in 2012 to serve the greater Seattle Chinese community. Broadcasting in both Mandarin and Cantonese, and with a web presence in Chinese, it is the first Chinese radio station in the region. Su started it as part of a class project when he was a graduate student at the University of Washington. It was a dream, he said at the conference, that has developed into not only radio but also a magazine and a yearly gala.
This is not an unusual trajectory. All who spoke on this day related how their initial plans to start a media outlet for an underrepresented community inevitably developed into even greater community involvement. Kishor Panthi, founder of the Nepali/English news outlet, Khasokhas (www.khasokhas.com), talked about a willingness to redefine their purpose based on the needs of the community they serve. At the time of founding, there were no Nepali language resources in New York City, where Khasokhas is based. Khasokhas started in order to fuel that gap, yet when the COVID-19 pandemic came about, they found themselves acting as a larger resource. Immigration has been a focus, as well as striving to reach a younger audience. Similarly to our Asian-led organizations here in Seattle, Khasokhas offers assistance, i.e. with taxes or healthcare.
Panthi is the first U.S. State Department accredited Nepali journalist in the U.S.
“In every crisis, we are with our community,” he said. For instance, during the height of the COVID-19 crisis, a Nepali man passed away in New York City and had no family to attend to his body. Khasokhas connected local authorities to the man’s family in Nepal so that proper burial rites could be held.
Macy Yang, the founder of Hmong Daily News in Sacramento, California (www.hmongdailynews.com), had similar stories to share about the impact the publication has had on its readership.
“Some of the most fulfilling stories for us have been about our war heroes,” Yang said. Many Hmong in the U.S. still suffer from PTSD, resulting from the war and trauma of what has essentially been a genocide committed against their people in Vietnam and Laos. One man, who was a pilot right before Communism took over in Laos, told his story to Yang’s paper and shared how healing being able to share that story was for him.
For his part, Su acknowledged the power of local media at voting time, and emphasized the need to be neutral due to that power. Another important topic of the session was how did each of these media outlets gain the trust of their respective communities? All of the speakers answered that they emphasize the importance of integrity and truth. Misinformation is one of the biggest battles they have, Yang admitted. They check their facts, they check the reliability of their sources, and when possible, they locate an expert from their own community to talk about the issue. For instance, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Hmong Daily News found a Hmong doctor who would refute claims of the efficacy of “home remedies” for the virus.
All of these outlets are small, yet no matter how small, it takes money to run a business. It requires the support of organizations such as Press Forward (www.pressforward.news), who hosted the session. Press Forward, represented by Christina Shih at the conference, is a philanthropic organization that provides grants to local media. Hmong Daily News, Khasokhas, and Chinese Radio Seattle all are recipients. Community members also provide financial assistance—but first, you have to identify what that community is. For Su, because the Chinese-speaking community can be divided, acknowledged that it has been challenging, but vital, to ensure that the station remains neutral. If they seem to support Taiwan, he said, then those from the Chinese Mainland will be upset, and vice versa. The same goes for covering the Democrats or the Republicans.
“We keep neutral and we just do all the events,” Su said.
Another challenge is always keeping up with technology. Panthi is convinced of the efficacy of vertical videos. These often short, portrait-format videos are considered a must these days if you want to reach a large audience, and if you want to reach young people. Local media outlets are usually not large, so they need the most “bang for the buck” possible. At the same time, the communities they serve are growing. Nepali population in the U.S., said Panthi, is increasing by 300%. They are all on TikTok, Facebook, etc. Each of these founders wears multiple hats to get the job done—be that reporting, distributing, or paying. Yang told session attendees that for the first three years of Hmong Daily News, she paid for it herself. Similarly to the Northwest Asian Weekly’s own story, when print became too pricey, too unwieldy, these outlets switched fully to digital—and that’s fine; digital is where readers and viewers hang out nowadays.
In what can sometimes feel like a news desert for those in underrepresented demographics, local news can be the primary tool for navigating a complicated world, said Shih. Oftentimes, major media in English does not cover topics of interest to Asians in the U.S., or there is no news available in one’s own language. All three of these local news outlets have risen to fill that gap, and have become much more than they originally intended. They have become a lifeline of information and assistance to those who might not know where to turn otherwise.
“We believed in the community and we knew that the community was with us,” said Su, on Chinese Radio Seattle’s beginnings. “My dream was just to be able to pay my employees,” Su said, laughing, but the challenge was real, and remains so. “I never give up.”
Kai can be reached at newstips@nwasianweekly.com.