Paula Zahn is the WORST Journalist!

Paula Zahn's program on CNN last night contained a segment on China adoption. It was extremely offensive.

It started with a short segment on some of the new China adoption regulations that was incomplete. Then Paula spoke with someone who is against discrimination against people who are heavy [one of the new China adoption regulations requires parents to be under a BMI index of 40.] Then a panel went off topic from the new regulations and talked about how racist people are for adopting from China instead of from Africa or African American children in this country. Basically, the panel made presumptions and said that adoptive parents want to adopt children from China because they are smarter, cuter and not African American.

Most people choose China because the program is predictable, reliable, relatively inexpensive and the wait-time has been shorter than other programs. As for the new restrictions, it is China's program and China's children, so whether Americans like the new restrictions is irrelevant.

I just went to CNN and posted the following comment to the Paula Zahn show:

"Your show on January 6 about China adoption was the worst quality journalism I have seen in years. China adoption and all adoption for that matter is a very complex issue and your coverage of adoption was extremely shallow and ignorant. It's insulting that you and your guests made presumptions about the parents' motivations for adopting children from China, implying that their motivations for choosing the China adoption program over domestic programs are race and appearance based. Now I know why CNN is failing in the ratings and being trumped by higher quality journalism from other networks."

It's Official!

My company is now offering a $5,000 adoption reimbursement benefit! I wrote a 2-3 page proposal on January 16, 2006 to my company requesting that they equalize the benefits among the biological and adoptive parents. Since then, it has gone through the various limits of authority and got approved starting this calendar year. Bryan and I are beyond happy! I spent approximately 25 hours on the proposal, researching the names of other companies that offer benefits, including our competitors, and refining my arguments for providing benefits. I am so proud that my company is now among the other companies that provide the much needed assistance to adoptive parents.