A conservative podcaster is being criticized for racist remarks targeting KPIX San Francisco reporter Betty Yu. Steven Crowder hosts Louder With Crowder, a podcast and YouTube program. On his Oct. 20 program, he commented on the closing of San Francisco’s only In-N-Out restaurant for failing to check guests’ vaccination status. Crowder played a clip of Yu on KPIX, reporting from In-N-Out, and commented, "Oh, that is an aggressively Asian face."
Crowder added, “Usually with the reporters, they're kind of like Americanized Asians. So I think it's a good thing...It's a good thing. It's full Asian."
SFGate.com reported that Crowder recently had a one-week suspension from YouTube for “hate speech targeting the transgender community.”
KPIX is part of CBS Television Stations.
“CBS Television Stations and KPIX 5 fully support our colleague Betty Yu and condemn the horrific, racist comments directed at Betty as well as the other demeaning Asian stereotypes spread during Steven Crowder’s program on Wednesday,” said Jennifer Mitchell, CBS Television Stations president, and KPIX president/general manager Kevin Walsh in a statement. “We stand in solidarity with Betty, an accomplished journalist and valued member of our CBS family. These hateful and offensive remarks are outrageous and destructive and reaffirm the importance of our work as journalists to shine a light on anti-Asian violence and hate speech when it occurs.”
Yu joined KPIX in late 2013 as a general assignment reporter. Before that, she was at WTVJ Miami and News 12 in New York City. From the Bay Area, Yu graduated from the University of California, Berkeley and got a journalism masters at Columbia in New York.
Crowder has 5.5 million subscribers on YouTube. The Louder With Crowder description on YouTube calls it “The NUMBER ONE conservative late night comedy show!!”
Crowder could not be reached for comment at press time.
