Minority Journalists Get Global View

SEATTLE — Minority journalists should take a global view in their news coverage, panelists at the Unity ’99 convention said Saturday.

“We must, in a multicultural society, learn to think multiculturally, not just in the boxes that we’ve become accustomed to. The global village must begin to think globally and not just nationally, which we’re not accustomed to,” said the Rev. Jesse Jackson, one of the speakers at “America’s Brave New World: Heaven or Hell.”

More than 6,000 minority journalists have been meeting here in the last week for the Unity ’99 convention.

“The challenge for us as journalists is getting Americans to realize that the news isn’t just what’s happening in our backyard or on our front porch. . . . We need to make people understand that foreign news is not just news about the latest saga of the British royals,” said Vicki Mabrey, CBS “60 Minutes II” correspondent.

The United States also “lacks knowledge of Asia and . . . is culturally insensitive,” said Ronnie Chan, chairman of the Hong Kong-U.S. Economic Cooperation Committee.

Strains in China-U.S. relations over revelations of nuclear spying have led to “a racial profiling of Chinese Americans as part of the China-bashing” in Congress, said George Koo, managing director of International Strategic Alliances Inc.