There was recently outrage from many indigenous groups around the world regarding a report done by CNN reporter, Jeanne Moos.
On April 7, 2014, CNN aired a story by Moos regarding the pōwhiri, which is the traditional Maori welcoming ceremony that was held at Government House in Wellington, New Zealand for their Royal Highnesses; the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.
In this report, she referred to the tangata-whenua, which in Maori means “people of the land,” as a “royal bummer” due to the exposure of a man’s tattooed buttocks while he wore traditional native wear. Moos questioned whether that was “anyway to welcome a future king and queen?”
Moos went on to ridicule the haka that welcomed the wife of former US President George Bush to a New Zealand contingent serving in Afghanistan.
She called the performance a routine of “slapping and thrusting” and said CNN had described it at the time as “a cross between a Chippendales lap dance and the mating dance of an emu.” She even goes on to poke fun at the hongi, a traditional customary Maori greeting, saying, “forget about rubbing shoulders.”
In wake of this report and its cultural insensitivity, numerous petitions have been created. The most popular petition was started on change.org, by Jade Everett, a self proclaimed Pakeha, a New Zealander of European descent who is from Wellington, New Zealand. It has garnered over 24,000 signatures calling for CNN and Jeanne Moos to publicly apologize.
This petition has inspired CNN and Jeanne Moos to release an apology. Moos has apologized for the nature of the story, saying she wasn’t making fun of Maori traditions and was only having fun with the image of a duchess meeting someone she described as a “bare-bottomed warrior in a thong.”
However, many indigenous cultures across the world are experiencing these types of exploitative cultural insensitivity.
To bring this issue closer to Hawaii, the highly offensive “Hula” iPhone app controversy has also hit the news in the recent weeks.
This app focuses on sexually transmitted diseases. In a recent article in HuffPost Hawaii, Trisha Kehaulani says, “This app reignites the historical trauma foreigner-introduced sexually transmitted diseases had on Hawaii. STDs introduced by foreigners nearly wiped out the Native Hawaiian population and left irreparable harm on the governance and well-being of the people.”
These instances of cultural insensitivity cause outrage in many indigenous communities around the world. In this day and age, there is an enormous need for the media and the rest of the “Western world” to develop cultural awareness and sensitivity, especially when reporting news that pertains to indigenous peoples.
The media is often the main source of attaining news and other information on what is going on around the world. Many people base their knowledge off of what they hear or see in the media.
Being that the media has such a prominent role in our society, I feel that the media has three main responsibilities that they must adhere to: act as a mirror of society to inform the people, bridge communication gaps between different sections of societies and critically analyze social and cultural issues in society
In order to fulfill these responsibilities, media should be held more accountable for the information that it conveys to the public. The media has a huge influence on opinions developed by their audience on different issues and events. The information media conveys should be rightfully portrayed without any inaccurate and culturally insensitive material. It occurs too often that information conveyed through the media is deemed offensive and/or inaccurate.
However, many lessons can be taken from this report by CNN’s reporter, Jeanne Moos. We, as a society, must be more consciously aware of everything we say and do. We must develop culture appreciation and sensitivity before we pass judgments and create our own opinions about different customs that are not familiar to us.
As Kofi Annan, the former secretary-general of the United Nations, has said, “Tolerance, inter-cultural dialogue and respect for diversity are more essential than ever in a world where people are becoming more and more closely interconnected.”
About the author: Jacob Bryan Aki is a graduate of the Kamehameha Schools and is an undergraduate student majoring in Hawaiian Studies at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.
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