Benny Luo remembers the day he realized racism and violence toward Asian Americans was going to get worse due to news of the coronavirus outbreak. On February 24, 2020, his NextShark team received a tip about an incident caught on video, where an elderly Chinese man was taunted, chased and had his aluminum cans stolen from him while collecting recyclables in San Francisco. With Covid-19 spreading, U.S. politicians using racist characterizations of the origins of the virus and rising U.S.-China tensions, on top of a history of xenophobia and scapegoating of Asians in America, Luo knew this one viral incident wouldn’t be the last.
As founder and CEO of NextShark, a news site dedicated to covering issues about Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, Luo recalls beginning to get tips to cover racially charged hate incidents back in 2016. The team would field one or two leads a week, though many times sources weren’t willing to go on the record, and there wasn’t enough evidence to fully report on the incidents.
But starting in February 2020, emails and social media messages about increasing hate incidents came pouring in, as many as 50 per day. As NextShark covered these stories, more tips came in, and the site became a leading source for collecting and reporting on hate incidents at the local level. Luo says site traffic has increased five-fold over the past year to roughly 5 million monthly visitors, and the startup’s social media reaches up to 20 million people per week across their active Instagram and Twitter pages.
It’s a big task for NextShark’s small team of 10, which Luo launched in 2013 using $3,000 of his own money. It started as a general interest site about millennial success, but after several AAPI-led stories became traffic hits, Luo recognized the opportunity to center the triumphs, challenges and experiences of being Asian in America. Over the years, the site has expanded into coverage of AAPI business leaders, politicians, pop culture icons, athletes and now activists driving change in the name of ending anti-Asian hate.
Luo, 33, spoke with CNBC Make It from his home in L.A., shortly after the birth of his first child, Enzo, about the ups and downs of being an AAPI leader squarely covering anti-Asian hate in the last year.
