%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% Editorial Board of CBS Incident Committee %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% Monday, August 1, 1994 (No. 11) ============================================================================= Table of Contents # of Lines ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. A Statement of Appreciation From CBS Incident Committee to CSS Nation-wide 2. CBS Incident Committee has sent protest letters ...................... 60 3. Concerned netters are encouraged to send your complains to FCC ........ 79 4. URGENT! Witness needed for CBS Incident .............................. 112 5. World Journal reported our protest compaign on the CNN incident ...... 153 6. CBS-IC's letter to Ms. Connie Chung .................................. 162 7. CBS-IC's Complain Letter to Mr. Charles Rivera ....................... 236 8. CBS-IC's protest letter to CNN Business News and Moneyline ........... 342 9. A follow-up letter to CNN Moneyline (drafted by Ray Wang) ............ 459 ============================================================================= ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. A Statement of Appreciation From CBS Incident Committee to CSS ........ 20 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- As of today, we have received more than $700 donations so far, and more are coming each day. We CBS Incident Committee wish to take this opportunity to thank all of you who have either devoted your precious time and energy in person or in monetary to support our common cause to fight against unfair media coverage. As the initial motivation of CBS Incident Committee, our highest goal is to seek a redress from CBS. However, we also realize that, the fighting against unfair media coverage is a long term cause and needs long term commitment. The CNN incident clearly shows us, with a well established and fighting ready watchdog organization to coordinate, and so many CSS nation-wide to stand up when situation arises, CNN had to take back their ridiculous allegation and acknowledge our outrage. Same is true to any other future incident to be and to this unsolved CBS incident. Our CBS Incident Committee members are all volunteers who have been working full scale on their own time and pocket. Our financial restrain severely hampers our ability to launch more successful campaign. Thanks to your generous support to cover our material, communication and office supplies, we now begin to feel ease to launch our next letter campaign. With more your support we may be able to hire a legal consultant so we can launch our campaign more effectively. Our next campaign now moves to the Federal Communication Commission, which reviews and renews local TV station's license regularly, the US Commission of Civil Rights, which may launch an investigation into the alleged "MSS spy recruiting procedure" and the spy book writing procedure. Our ultimate success relies decisively on your support and commitment. Please suppor us financially as generous as possible! Thank you very much! Mi Mi Sr. P.S. Please make contributions payable to IFCSS/CBS Incident Fund, and mail it to Mr. Frank Chen / CBSIC 361 Ogden Avenue, Jersey City, NJ 07307 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2. CBS Incident Committee has sent protest letters ...................... 60 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- CBS Incident Committee has sent protest letters to major news media, CBS, and civil rights agencies throughout the nation. The letters contain thousands of signatures. CBS Incident Committee wishes to thank all of those who participated our movement, those who will continue to strive to promote the fair image of ordinary Chinese-American in this country. During the short two month history of CBS-IC, we have witnessed ups and downs. The CNN incident, which started shortly ten days ago, has proven that, with a strong community solidarity and determined commitment, we have made a difference. And we will make more differences! United, we will make another difference! Mi Mi Sr. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. Concerned netters are encouraged to send your complains to FCC ........ 79 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Federal Communication Commission is reviewing and renewing the licenses of TV stations. It is a great channel to voice our complains, and demand CBS's fair coverage. CBS Incident Committee has submit complain packages to the following FCC branches: TV Division, FCC Inforcement Division, FCC 1919 M Street N.W. 1919 M Street N.W. Washington, D.C. 20554 Washington, D.C. 20554 Phone: 202-418-1630 Phone: 202-632-3860 FAX: 202-632-0158 FAX: 202-632-9659 Mr. Roy Steward, Chief Mr. Norman Goldstein, Chief Mass Media Bureau, FCC Complains and Investigation, FCC 1919 M Street N.W. 1919 M Street N.W. Washington, D.C. 20554 Washington, D.C. 20554 Fax (202)-632-0158 Fax (202)-653-9659 Tel (202)-632-6460 Tel (202)-632-7048 Mr Reed Irvine, Chairman Accuracy in Media 4455 Connecticut Ave, NW Washington DC 20008 Tel: 202-364-4401 Concerned netters are encouraged to send your complains to the above agencies about the CBS's absurd, unfair practice. United, we will make another difference! Mi Mi Sr. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4. URGENT! Witness needed for CBS Incident .............................. 112 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [From Kam Tsang, relayed by CBSIC] In this year's Unity '94, a conference of minority journalists currently being held in Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta, Georgia, Charles Rivera of the US Commission on Civil Rights revealed that the Commission is considering looking into the May 19th CBS report. A decision has to be made in a meeting to be held on the coming Tuesday (August 2, 1994) regarding possible actions against CBS. The commission is therefore urgently seeking individuals who have been on either side in the process of visa application from the Chinese government, namely those who have been questioned by the so called Chinese Ministry of State Security or similar agencies, and especially those who have been in a position such as an immigration officer to ask such or similar questions. If you have been in either one of the the above two situations, especially the latter, please contact ASAP: Charles Rivera Director of Public Affairs US Commission on Civil Rights 624 Ninth Street NW Room 737 Washington, DC 20425 202/376-8312 202/376-8125 fax: 202/376-8315 Obviously if you have been through the process of visa application from the Chinese government and can witness to the contrary of what was described in the CBS report, it will be very beneficial. Please forward this message to newsgroups and anyone who may be of assistance. Thank you. -kam ps. my employer, Pure Software, Inc, has nothing to do with this message ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5. World Journal reported our protest compaign on the CNN incident ...... 153 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- On 7/27's NYC edition of the World Journal, it reported the misleading Moneyline program and the massive protest compaign from Chinese communities. It said hundreds of protesting calls and faxes flooded the headquarters of CNN and Moneyline Division. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6. Mr. Huang Lin's letter to Ms. Connie Chung ........................... 162 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mr. Lin Huang National Coordinator CBS Incident Committee 3044 Albany Crescent 1G Bronx, NY 10463 (718)-548-9114 July 28, 1994 Ms. Connie Chung CBS News 524 West 57th St. New York, NY 10019 Dear Ms. Connie Chung, We do not need to recall the painful memories of your news report aired on May 19, 1994, about the ordinary Chinese like us being potential Chinese spies in the future. We have noticed that you have expressed your regret for the fact that your report has hurt your compatriots. We also understand, as you have openly admitted in your interviews with other news media, that your programs are "rating driven" instead of "journalism driven". However, expressing your feelings on Chinese news media can NOT erase the negative impact on the American general public of your May 19th report, about the alleged evil plot by your honest and decent fellow compatriots "to steal America's military and technological secrets", "a few years down the road". As a renowned and highly admired journalist, you must realize that not only have the conclusions of your report been far fetched, but also it contained little truth and were of no news value. To give one example, your interviewee, Mr. Eftimiades, does not claim, and has been denied, to represent the American intelligence agencies. Even those personal opinions were unchallenged in your report. We are hereby sending you a copy of our letter addressed to Mr. Lane Venardos, which has analyzed the major aspects of your report in detail. We do hope that you realize how absurd your allegations are, how profoundly our feelings have been hurt and how serious the damages can be. We have no intention to make this dispute personal, but we do wish that you do not make us your personal enemies. We sincerely hope that you will be courageous enough to lead the CBS news crew to make the American public, outside the limited circle of the Chinese-American community, aware of your regrets, of the wrong information you have delivered and the wrong impressions your program may have generated. As a Chinese-American grew up in fifties and sixties, you know better than any of us that it is very difficult to live in a environment where a Chinese-American is treated unfairly, and anyone with consciousness should be careful not to create obstacles to endanger and jeopardize the daily life of a minority like Chinese-American, who is already subject to many biased and ill-intended accusations and blames. The public has the right to know the truth, and we have the right to be cleared from any images of spies next door that your program has created. We will not tolerate any accusations and unsubstantiated reports which may stir up anti-Chinese sentiment in this country. From now on, the Chinese community will be paying close attention to the news media to ensure fairness and accuracy. We will fight any biased or racist allegations. An open-aired apology and clarification of facts followed by balanced reports on the CBS Evening News will be very helpful on this regard. Sincerely Yours Mr. Huang Lin ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 7. Mr. Huang Lin's Complain Letter to Mr. Charles Rivera ................ 236 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mr. Lin Huang National Coordinator CBS Incident Committee 3044 Albany Crescent 1G Bronx, NY 10463 (718)-548-9114 hua7291@med2s0.engr.ccny.cuny. edu July 29, 1994 Charles Rivera Director of Public Affairs US Commission on Civil Rights 624 Ninth Street NW Room 737 Washington, DC 20425 fax: 202-376-8315 Honorable Charles Rivera, It has been brought to my attention that you are seeking individuals who have been on either sides in the process of visa application from the Chinese government, namely those who have been questioned by the so called Chinese Ministry of State Security or similar agencies, and especially those who have been in a position such as an immigration officer to ask such or similar questions, in an attempt to investigate the unfortunate CBS Evening News report of May 19, 1994 about potential Chinese spies. As the National Coordinator of the CBS Incident Committee, a nationwide assembly of Chinese students and scholars who have joined to protest the CBS Evening News' May 19th broadcast, I hereby offer my help to you regarding the proposed investigations. Our CBS Incident Committee was established on May 28, 1994, shortly after the CBS broadcast. We now have roughly one hundred committee members and coordinators, and a pool of thousands volunteers nationwide, coordinating activities provoked by this unfortunate incident. Our research team has located numerous original documents and conducted rigorous case studies on the alleged spy report. Our research findings reveal that, the CBS Evening News made its story solely on one book, and never communicated with Defense Intelligence Agency in this regard (otherwise CBS would never have claimed that their information came from Defense Information Agency, a nonexistent entity in the U.S.). Even though, many facts were distorted and manipulated to create shocking effects. Furthermore, the original book, which was written by a current employee of Defense Intelligence Agency, had distorted and manipulated the original documents to make selling points of his book. For example, one of the main supporting evidence that China operates the largest espionage network in the U.S. was the scale of illegal export involving China, which, as claimed at the rate of one in every eight cases. The fact is, although as reported in L.A.Times, exporting business with China had been under strictly scrutiny that 50% of the illegal export cases investigated on west coast involves China, however, most of those investigations found nothing wrong at all. To make up the "one in eight cases", the author compounded illegal exports to Hong Kong, Taiwan as the cases to mainland China. The actual illegal export involving China, according to the Justice Department and Commerce Department, is only 3%, comparable to that of many Western allies. Another example is, the author of the spy book claimed that, numerous Chinese spies had identified themselves to the senior officers of Independent Federation of Chinese Students and Scholars (IFCSS) shortly after pre-democracy movement. Based on some guess work, the author came up with the number of hundreds of active agents operating in the U.S. By contacting the current senior officer of IFCSS, we found nothing was substantiated so far. However, the guess work was used anyway to support the "largest spy network" fairy tale. As a Chinese-American minority, we know better than any one else that it is very difficult to live in an environment where a Chinese-American is treated unfairly, who is already subject to many biased and ill-intended accusations and blames. We believe that this broadcast implants a stereotype of Chinese Americans as being carefully and devious, and may lead to unfair discrimination of Chinese Americans in the American workplace and in society. Furthermore, this unbalanced reporting on CBS may encourage the anti-immigrant sentiments that pervade the country. This will have a huge effect not only on immigrants, but also on all Asian American, Since most Americans cannot distinguish Chinese American from other Asian Americans and cannot distinguish American born Chinese from immigrants. As the National Coordinator representing thousands of ordinary Chinese-Americans, I hereby urge the Civil Rights Commission to take serious step to look into this case thus to prevent such kind of unfair and biased report being aired again in the future. Sincerely Yours, Mr. Huang Lin Enclosure: Our Protest letter to CBS VP Lane Venardos, signed by over 6000+ individuals across the continent. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 8. Mr. Huang Lin's protest letter to CNN Business News and Moneyline .... 342 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- [Addressed to Mr. Casey Wian, Mr. Lou Dobbs and Mr. Eric Gonon] We appreciate your acknowledgement in July 20's Moneyline in responding to the protest from the Chinese American community. You have shown that you care about your viewers, care about fairness, accuracy and credibility in your news reports. However, we noted that there were still some far-fetched data and improper innuendos in the program. As stated in our previous letter, the inaccurate and groundless allegation that as much as 20 billion dollars from the US taxpayers may have been spent on the illegal Chinese immigrants every year could cause, and may already have generated resentments in the American public to the Chinese American community around the country. We are extremely concerned about the impact of Monday's report and the repeatedly running promotion last weekend. According to the official US government documents, which are based on scientific surveys and statistics, the Chinese illegal immigrants is less than 0.8% of the total illegal immigrant population [*]. It is much lower than many other ethnic groups. As a demonstrative example, in New York City which draws more than half of the illegal Chinese immigrants in the country, Chinese illegal immigrants ranked only 13th among other ethnic groups, lower than those from some developed countries [**]. The extremely questionable 10% figure quoted by Mr. Wian, which amounts to hundreds of thousands, is from private sources, which is to be validated for its accuracy and credibility. A balanced report should at least quote the official US government statistics. Even if we grant full credit to the investigative capability of your private sources, Mr. Williard Myers, who was the major interviewee in your program and your major source, an expert on Chinese illegal immigrants, authorized us to make the following statement: "Other than direct expenses of enforcing the law, the Chinese who has entered the US by irregular means do not cost a penny from the US government and American taxpayers". To the contrary, Mr. Myers pointed out, in his communication with us, that the chinese illegal immigrants make positive contributions to the US economy and American society by working in Chinese owned businesses, which has been expanding by the extra source of labor. To express it explicitly, they do NOT take other Americans' job away! Furthermore, contrary to the impression caused by other sectors of illegal immigrant population, the Chinese illegal immigrants do not rely on social welfare provided by the US government. Therefore the report is irrelevant to Moneyline because the financial aspect of the report is totally groundless and a pure extravaganza. The Chinese American community, as part of the people of this nation, shares the anxiety of most Americans about the illegal immigrant problem and welcomes a balanced report which covers not only the Haitians, the Mexicans and the Chinese, but also the illegal immigrants from other countries. However, singling out the Chinese as scapegoats just because the images of the boat people are striking and "news worthy" seems to have left the high standard of journalism, which CNN has always held, behind. This will not contribute to the racial harmony all of us are striving for in this great nation. Based on the forecited facts, we believe that it is fair for us to ask you to acknowledge on Moneyline that your program and the ongoing promotion have created a wrong impression, that is, the illegal Chinese immigrants are coming to America taking bread and butter away from our dining tables! The public has the right to know the truth, and the Chinese Americans, who are immigrants or descendants of immigrants from last few hundred years just like most people in our country, have the right to be cleared from images of any evil intent. We cannot tolerate any accusations and reports which may stir up anti-Chinese sentiment, and we are paying attention to the media to assure fairness and accuracy, and to fight any racist allegations. An apology and clarification of facts will be very helpful on this regard. Thank you for your precious time and attention to the matter. [Signed] [*] See reports on Los Angels Times, Nov. 26, 1993. Illegal immigrants population 1992 National total: 3,217,800 Region/country U.S. Total -North and Central American 2,096,300 -Asia 339,400 Philippines 101,500 other Asian 99,300 Iran 37,400 India 30,400 Israel 28,000 China 24,200 Lebanon 18,600 -Europe 316,600 -South America 204,000 -Africa 124,000 -Oceania 16,300 -Stateless/unknown 121,200 [**] See reports on New York TImes, Sep. 2, 1993. Largest Illegal Alien Groups in New York (Sources: INS; NY City Dept. of City Planning) Ecuador 27,100 Italy 26,800 Poland 25,800 Dominican Republic 25,600 Colombia 24,500 Haiti 21,400 Jamaica 21,200 Trinidad and Tobago 20,500 Ireland 16,900 El Salvador 15,300 Pakistan 14,600 Israel 13,500 China 12,700 ... ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 9. A follow-up letter to CNN Moneyline (drafted by Ray Wang) ............ 459 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dear Sir/Madam: We watched your Moneyline's report on illegal Chinese immigration issue on Tuesday and Wednesday. We noticed that you modified your Wednesday's report in an attempt to address the whole picture of illegal immigration, and you took out the sentence that stated Chinese illegal immigration costed US $15 billion. We appreciate your courage and willingness in trying to restore the truth. We praise your display of responsible journalism. We view your attempt as a positive first step. However, after we watched your modified version, we are still concerned with several points you failed to address in that report. A. Do you stand by your claim that Chinese illegal immigrants cost US $15 billion? It is not enough to simply omit it, especially after you have aired it in Tuesday's program. We are deeply concerned with the negative impact that was caused by the original program and promotion. We expect you, as a responsible network, to make a public acknowledgement of the mistake you made in the original report and to apologize to the Chinese community in the US. B. In your Wednesday's program, you claimed that there were 600,000 illegal Chinese immigrants in the United States. According to a report in New York Times, '....' (Please fill in the blank here, I lost the mail.) We are deeply disturbed by your motivation to signal out an ethnic group that has less than 1% of the total illegal immigrants as a major problem. We believe that your failure to address the above issues have cost unjustified damage towards the members of Chinese community in the United States. We expect you to take the next step, show your determination to bring to whole truth to the public. Thank you for your concern. We are looking forward to your response. %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% % Editor of CBS Incident Committee: Miao Ye % % Xiangdong Shi % % Sign on/off at listserv@ifcss.org, with mailbody as: % % sub fcbs-l Firstname Lastname, or signoff fcbs-l % % Post at fcbs-l@ifcss.org % % Anonymous ftp at ifcss.org:/ifcss/Legal/cbs % %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%