Media and Political Victims: Wen Ho Lee and Norman Hsu
September 14, 2007
This week, I hope you didn’t forget to mark another important September day — one that recalls a period when a terrorist in a turban couldn’t hold a candle to a Chinese American as the most dangerous threat to the American way of life.
Seven years ago this week, Dr. Wen Ho Lee, the former Los Alamos nuclear scientist, was cleared of accusations of passing information to the Chinese government — information that might have been secret if it wasn’t readily available from other sources. But that didn’t stop the government and the Clinton administration from responding to conservatives’ Cold War fears by making Lee, a Taiwan-born American citizen, a convenient political scapegoat.
The affront to the individual liberty of an Asian American was so great, our community should vow never to forget Lee’s story, especially in September.
On Sept. 13, 2000, Lee was vindicated as he stood before Federal District Judge James A. Parker in New Mexico. Judge Parker apologized for placing Lee in solitary confinement, shackled at all times and in a cell under round-the-clock surveillance for nine months. It was treatment fit for bin Laden—if they ever catch him.
Judge Parker also blamed the government for pursuing a case fraught with misstatements and lies.
When the judge’s remarks were over, Lee, who faced a 59-count indictment and the possibility of a life sentence, entered a guilty plea to a single count in a plea-bargained deal and was free to go home.
The “I am not a spy” era in the Asian American community was over (though the “I am not a terrorist” era was just around the corner).
But we may not have had to endure the “spy” phase if the reporting on the matter were a whole lot better.
As it turned out, the mainstream press on the Lee story was no watchdog. It merely echoed the lies of the government and helped foster an alarming anti-Asian sentiment throughout the country.
MEDIA DID IT
Judge Parker’s comments sparked an extraordinary bit of self-examination from The New York Times, purveyor of the most unbalanced reporting on Lee.
On Sept. 26, 2000, The Times ran an unsigned piece that justified its coverage but also admitted that the newspaper should have given Lee the “full benefit of the doubt,” and that Lee “was a minor player, or completely uninvolved.”
The Times’ media confession also stated the universal sin of the mainstream media in dealing with people of color: “We never prepared a full-scale profile of Dr. Lee, which might have humanized him and provided some balance.”
Wen Ho Lee didn’t die for The Times’ sin, but he was stripped of all freedom. Lee filed a lawsuit against the government, claiming invasion of privacy when it leaked his personal information to reporters.
Last year, five news organizations (The Times, as well as ABC News, the Associated Press, the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post) were made to contribute $750,000 to a $1.6 million settlement in the lawsuit.
You’d think the media had learned its lesson.
SO WHAT ABOUT THIS GUY, NORMAN HSU?
First: Norman Hsu is no Wen Ho Lee. Hsu’s just the latest Asian American to be put under the media microscope.
Hsu was convicted of grand theft in San Mateo 15 years ago, but then skipped his sentencing only to re-emerge recently as a leading campaign finance bundler for Democrats.
Maybe he thought he was helping our backlogged judiciary by self-sentencing himself to a bit of what I’d call “pre-community service.”
What I’m wondering is why the media hasn’t learned its lessons from Lee — to show balance and restraint in approaching Hsu’s story.
You expect conservative bloggers and Fox News to call for Hsu’s head.
Since Hsu raised more than a million dollars for Hillary Clinton and other Democrats, it’s just too tempting to use an Asian American face and play the partisan race card.
It didn’t take long for the usual suspects to whip up xenophobic fears about foreigners buying our politicians with pumped up headlines like the “Chop Suey Connection.”
Conservatives would love to revive Cold War sentiment by creating a new “yellow peril,” just in time for the upcoming elections.
And Hsu is a pretty good whipping boy. A suspicious Asian American fund-raiser for Hillary? Even the editors at the relatively staid Wall Street Journal couldn’t constrain themselves.
They didn’t bother giving Hsu the more subtle engraved headshot treatment, figuring this Asian face was worthy of the “full monty.” In the Journal’s Sept. 8 edition, there were no fewer than four color photographs of Hsu.
It’s overkill. We’re seeing a story that should focus on the failed legal system that allows a convicted felon to go unfound for 15 years, or the faulty campaign contribution system that can’t seem to properly vet bundled donations.
But it’s just too easy for the media to concentrate on Hsu’s Asian-ness, perpetuating negative stereotypes that haven’t withered and died.
Until that happens, expect more of the same: selective prosecutions like Lee’s and political piling-on as in Hsu’s case.
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