********************************************************************** * * * United, We Must Stand Up For Our Own Rights and Interests * * ========================================================= * * * * a Working Report by the CBS Incident Committee * * * * submitted to the IFCSS 6th Congress * * * * July 23 , 1994 * * * ********************************************************************** CBSIC working report Number One, version 1.10 Introduction ============ Chapters: Chapter One: History of the CBS Incident Committee Chapter Two: CBS Incident Committee Personnel Chapter Three: Working Reports Chapter Four: Current Status Chapter Five: Future Plan Attachments: I. CBS-IC News Release II. protest letter package III. research excerpts and summary IV. CBS related phone #, fax # and e-mail and postal mail addresses
Chapter One: The Incipient of the CBS Incident Committee And Its Preparation
Chapter Two: CBS Incident Committee Organizations (personnel)
Chapter Three: Working Reports ------------------------------- o original material ================= Mr. Luo Ning made a transcript from the video tape recording or the CBS report, which was the basis of the IFCSS initial response to CBS. Mr. Herb Ho has also made video recordings and transcript of the program. Mr. Key Sun has made the tape of the section of the CBS report available to the CBS IC members and many concerned CSS. o Liason ====== -- Media On May 24, 1994, Mr. Chengyan Liu contacted Mr. John Xie, World Journal reporter. He told Mr. Liu that CBS denied any audiences' response on regard of their May 19th's evening news broadcasting, though a dozen people had sent their opinions through Internet fax service. Mr. Liu therefore showed Mr. John Xie the exact fax number. Mr. Xie expressed his willing for further investigation and possible report. On May 26th, World Journal published a detailed report on CSS community's angry response to CBS May 19th "Eye on America" program. It cited Xiaolin Li's protest letter, IFCSS HQ's inquiry letter and other opinions from Internet. CBS released an official statement to World Journal that "there is nothing wrong with May 19th CBS report and they regret to hear CSS community's outrage response. All its news broadcasting is aimed to be objective". Liang Er has contacted several reporters, and some other american and chinese civil rights groups. Among them, there are Mr. liu kaiping, journalist in tsing tao daily, and Ms. zheng hui yan, director for information center of world journal. all of them are willing to put efforts in cbs issue from different perspectives. Xing Zheng has talked to Ms. Qiu Zhao-qi, a reporter in World Journal, on May 29, and was told that a similar essay was posted in New York Times in Feb. She was planning to study this subject and might publish on this issue. She was willing to seek cooperations in this regard from Chinese students and scholars, and try to get more complete information and data. On June 2nd, IFCSS President Lin Changsheng told Chengyan Liu that there was a phone call from CBS to acknowledge acceptance of the inquiry letter. CBS also said to Mr. Lin that "it is a mistake. the program is based on a book." When Chengyan Liu asked Mr. Lin what is a mistake, and on which day from whose office this call was made, Mr. Lin couldn't remember since he is still in hunger strike and weak. From June 12 to 14, Mr. Liu Chengyan and Mr. Huang Lin communicated with reporters from New York Times and New York Daily News. The New York Times is interested in CBS incident only there a lawsuit pending, and did not carry the article prepared by the reporter. However, the New York Daily News carried an report by reporter Miss Ying Chan. (See Appendix 3.6) Liang Er communicated with Mr. Gary Gach, a reporter in Asian Week, which he claims as the largest English Chinese newspaper or magazine. They are doing some article on CBS incident. Following is an excerpt of Mr. Gach's message to Liang: > my editor, at the newspaper, took 2 weeks > to digest the initial material i gave her about > the incident, and sam cacas finally wrote > something which is being published. i told him > i'll be giving him some follow-up stuff, and will > be glad to give him your number, and so forth > and such like. -- Organizations tfeng@ARL.MIL has compiled a list of advocacy groups for further contact. YANG Chang-Qing has compiled some e-mail addresses president@whitehouse.gov !President vice.president@whitehouse.gov !Vice President nightly@nbc.com !NBC Nightly News bwreader@mgh.com !Business Week Magazine 71154.1006@compuserve.com !U.S. News & World Report Magazine IFCSS Council member Liang Er called Mr. Henry Der, Executive Director of Chinese Affirmation Association, Ms. Dorothy Lee, Executive Director of Alliance of Asian and Pacific Minorities, and Mr. Charles Cheung, Vice President of Alliance of Hong Kong Chinese in the United States. The above three organizations have put tremendous efforts in the works for the welfare and civil rights of Chinese and other ethnic minorities in the United States and against any discriminations. They also have fought together against KFRC, a radio station in California, for a broadcasted racial joke about Chinese, and successfully got open apologies from Mr. highs, President of KFRC. Mr. Liang informed them to pay attentions to this issue and to collaborate with and help IFCSS in any further actions. Liang Er also has made contacts with Mr. Jing Lin, Silicon Valley Chinese Engineers Association, which had located a lawyer to sue CBS for its May 19th evening news broadcasting. As a Council member, Mr. Liang Er has taken a lead in informing the Council about the CBSIC activities and actively coordinating between the Council and the CBSIC. June 10, Mr. Luo Ning and Mr. Frank Cheng contacted three Chinese community organizations in the New York City metro area: Mr Hsin-Yuan Cheng, President of Sino Radio Broadcasts Corp.; Mr Alfred Lui, Executive Director of NY Chinatown Senior Citizen Coalition Center; and Mr Z. Ming Ma, President of United Chinese Congress. Frank Cheng, a member of this committee, went together with me in the meeting with Mr Ma of UCC. Luo briefed them the CBS program on 5/19, the letter of IFCSS VP to CBS, the establishment of our committee and networks, the replying letter of CBS VP to IFCSS, and some of works we have been doing such as news releases, letter campaigns, etc.. The persons Luo and Cheng had contacted with expressed their strong support to us and solidarity in this cause of protecting the image of Chinese people in the US. They were not surprised that Connie Chung had done such a program damaging the interests of all Chinese people in this country based on their past experiences about Ms Chung. They suggested that we must be cautious and well-prepared in this collective action against the media giant CBS. Huang Lin contacted the ACLU and the NAACP on 15th of June. The ACLU expressed that they only sue government, not CBS. Mr. Liang Er reported that many Chinese community groups in San Francisco Bay area who expressed concern and anger over the CBS report have received responses from CBS within the last 10 days. However, they are all similar to the response IFCSS have received. These groups planned to do some of the following things: a press conference, a protest in front of CBS's local station, a law suit, an ad on newspapers to protest CBS. Huang Lin contacted CAST. The CAST President Zhang says he has 1500+ members over 27 states. We discussed future co-operation aspect. CAST is a non-political organization, and Huang confirmed him our CBS-IC is a non-political organization and nothing else. Huang passed our protest letter to him, and he highly appraised the work has been done so far, thanks to Xiao Dong's background research, Ray Wang's professional English and many other's hard work. CAST will send a coordinator to our committee, and further co-operation is underway. We also discussed the possibility of using the facts in the prospective law suit against CBS that many high-power Chinese professionals are under deep depress due to the CBS report, which, hopefully will avoid the difficulties in either locating a actual victim or conducting a costly public opinion poll. Dr. Zhang promised he will seriously looking into this possibility. He told he himself is depressed since his company has defense contract and routinely checks employees' communication messages. CAST members are scatted mainly in eastern region, and an internet connection between CBS-IC and CAST will soon be set up. Frank Cheng (cheng@lamont.ldgo.columbia.edu) was invited to the board meeting of CAST (Chinese Association of Science and Telechnology) on July 17 at Manhattan,NYC, I briefed them the CBS incident, the CBS-IC, and the wonderful work done so far by Mr. Huang Lin and other hard working committee member. In response to the request for cooperation in fighting against the CBS' report, Mr. Zhang Qiu, the president of CAST, expressed they would help us in the following ways: 1) Collecting signatures: There are about 1,500+ professionals in the list of CAST's members ( I obtained a copy of it). They authorized us to include all its members in the signature list at this moment, and remove those who don't want to sign up upon request. (They will make a survey. We should wait for the result which may come up early next month.) Mr. Zhang promised to solicit more than 100 organizations to join our signature petition. 2) Fund raising: Mr. Zhang promised to lend us an account for fund raising. If we want to raise fund, he would like to see the itemized expenses first. o News Release ============ In order to reach out for support at the grass-root level, and voice the concern of ordinary Chinese, the CBS Incident Committee distributes News Release electronically to Chinese communities. Ten regular issues have been distributed as of 7/20/94 (once every five days on average). In addition, special editions were released in cases of special events. Each regular issue of News Release have four parts: I. General Information concerning the CBS incident (such as announcements, protest letters). II. Case Study of Legal Issues, including feasibility study, strategy study, etc. III. Activities of the CBS Incident Committee and Chinese communities concerning the incident. IV. Suggestions from subscribers. The editor of Part I and II is Miao Ye, while the editor of Part III and IV is Xiangdong Shi. Past issues can be found by anonymous ftp from ifcss.org: ifcss/Legal/cbs. Mr. Chen Dong maintains the archive. Our news releases enjoy a broad spectrum of readers. The releases are distributed to fcbs-l@ifcss.org net, Usenet newsgroups soc.culture.china, talk.politics.china and alt.chinese.text, china-net, china-news-post net, ccnl net, cssa net and IFCSS archives. Our direct readers are estimated to be at least 5,000, mainly from North America. They consist of not only Chinese from mainland, Taiwan and HongKong, but also non-Chinese. Each week, the editors receive hundreds, sometimes thousands of electronic mail from readers. They have become the steam of our Committee. Many of the suggestions from readers have become solid actions of the CBS Incident Committee. At the meantime, the Committee gain support widely by reaching out, collecting more than 1,300 signatures within two weeks for its first round of protest letter campaign. Editing Board members: Miao Ye (my@math.luc.edu) Sheldon Shi (shi6@oddjob.uchicago.edu) In addition to News Release, the CBS Incident Committee has edited Internal Communications, organized by Jienan Chen. Initial proposal includes 4 editors, a cross review and then assemble. ==> Categorization: (1). General (weekly or as appropriate) ------> Jienan Chen Ideas, goals, strategies, organizational structure (introduction of internal work bodies), etc. (2). Activities (weekly) ------> Miao Ye Compile updates of committee activities (such as media interviews, contacts with other orgs, legal preparation, letter campaigns, surveys, activities of various internal work bodies, etc.). (3). Releases (weekly or as appropriate) ------> Yang Changqin Official statements (including position statements, news releases, briefings, comments), announcements, supporting documents (including info packages), guidelines, etc. (4). References (weekly or as appropriate) ------> George Gao Tape transcripts, letter correspondence (especially official ones), book extracts, legal case studies and analyses, etc. (5). Specials (as appropriate) ------> Together or whoever Misc. info that can not be categorized or too large in volume to be included in the above topics. ==> Format: 1. Title. Let's call it: CBS INCIDENT COMMITTEE UPDATE ISSUE #XX (Month/Day-Month/Day, 1994) (Whoever has more artistic talent, please make it more appealing:-) 2. Topic (Category): We can put all in one pot or in separate issues based on availability and volume. 3. Table of Contents (title, author name, # of lines) 4. Body content 5. Addendum (Coordinator, contact addresses, slogan, etc.) o Telephone protest ================= Since the CBS slander report on Chinese, many people have called CBS in New York City to express their outrage. Here are just some of the reports made during early weeks of the incident. Mr. Liang Er called the office of CBS in New York, and have told Ms. Beth Constock about the concerns on the report from Chinese Students and Scholars community. I have expressed that we hope CBS could make more further investigation upon this issue, and give us a correct explanation and apology. I have also asked her to deliver the same message to Mr. Laurence Tisch, President of CBS. Herb Ho called CBS headquarters and got transferred to the director of its Audience Services Department. (6/1) Mr. Dong Xiao had made many phone calls to various CBS personnel relating to this program, and posted a list of phone numbers. 1. CBS switchboard: (212) 975-4321. At this phone number you can inquire phone numbers of any CBS personnel, you'll be transferred to the Communication's Department where they will find the phone numbers for you. You can also ask to register your complaint, you will then be transferred to recording machines to make a recording. 2. CBS Evening News: (212) 975-3691 Here at Evening News you can talk to a person who takes down the complaint about the CBS report slandering Chinese. You might be advised by the person to write a letter, but since you already called, you should get her to write down whatever you have to say and pass it to the guilty party. 3. Eric Ober's office: (212) 975-6581 Mr. Ober is the president of CBS Evening News, vice president of CBS and he is responsible to authorize the news program (all news programs) to air. 4. Connie Chung's office: (212) 975-7192 Ms. Connie Chung is not only the person who read the report. She came up with the original idea. She and the Producer Tom Anderson went to China to meet Premier Li Peng to produce this news piece. Another Executive Producer of this program is Eric Sorenson. o Protest letter Campaign ======================= Upon the outcry of the Chinese students and scholars, many of whom had contacted the IFCSS headquaters by phone and e-mails, urging the IFCSS to take action against the CBS slanderous report, the IFCSS Vice President, Mr. Heping Shi, mailed an inquiry and protest letter via Federal Express to CBS Vice President Eric Ober on May 23, 1994. The letter is included in CBS-IC News Release Issue 1 (Attachment 3) and the protest letter campaign package (Attachment 4). On May 20th, 1994, after some discussions on newsgroup soc.culture.china, Prof. Li Xiaolin, Purdue University, drafted a protesting letter to CBS for its May 19th's evening news broadcasting on hinted Chinese espionage in the United States. Until May 23rd, he has received more than 200 co-signers. On May 24, 1994, Dr. Li Xiaolin mailed the protest letter via Federal Express to CBS President, Mr. Howard Stringer with co-sign signatures. Several days later Dr. Li sent more co-sign mails to the CBS. Some sample protest letters are carried in CBS-IC News Release Issue 1, written by Xiaohong Wang (0005678497@mcimail.com), Muguang Wu (wuxx0015@gold.tc.umn.edu), Jianxiong Song (songjian@STUDENT.MSU.EDU), and Jinsong Xiao (xiao@mbisgi.umd.edu). See Attachment 3. Mr. Rui Sun drafted a letter, distributed it to everyone at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, ask people to sign individually before sending it through all channels, mail, fax or e-mail etc to CBS. Herb Ho wrote a letter and distributed to may computer newsgroups. around June 1. (See Appendix 3.4) An e-mail fax site for Connie Chung at CBS was located. It is: remote-printer.Connie.Chune/cbs@9.1.5.1.5.7.9.2.1.2.1.tpc.int After the initial protest, on June 1, the vice president of CBS Hard News and Special Events sent a letter to IFCSS vice president Mr. Shi Heping, in response to his inquiry of the CBS report. In the letter, the CBS VP said CBS stands by its report. He also said that Chinese Ministry of State Security had recruited hundreds of ordinary Chinese citizens to steal U.S. secrets based on U.S. intelligence and CBS reported concrete examples of this having occurred. He also cited that between 1986 and 1993, one in eight of illegal export enforcement cases closed by U.S. Commerce Dept. involved P.R. China. To respond, the Committee started a major letter campaign offensive. Dong Xiao, Huang Lin and Ray Wang drafted a protest letter with help from Committee of 100 and Marc Forino, one of Committee's legal advisors, in reply to the CBS vice president Lane Venardos. The letter has gone through numerous versions and discussions among the committee members, legal consultants. The final version 5.40 was released on July 9th, CBSIC's News Release. About the letter campaign strategy. There are two and only two reasons to send a copy of the letter to a recipient. One, sending it to the recipient will help us to make our concerns go public. Two, sending it to the recipient will apply pressure to CBS in public. The letter will be sent to CBS President Howard Stringer CBS Vice President Eric Ober Producer Thomas Anderson Producer Eric Sorensen News Anchor Connie Chung News Anchor Dan Rather Major national newspapers Local CBS stations US congress members (cpeng) government agencies (Jinping Shi, cheng@lamont.ldgo.columbia.edu) by means of ) E-mailable: we can send to those without costs, so no great concerns,just need to put them into a single file, so we can send our barrage's in one shot; 2) Faxable: those may be sent through internet, we have several volunteers who can do exactly this. But please put them into a manageable file; 3) Postal mailable: those will incur costs, so please sort them into first priority; second; and third. The first priority group is what we will send out anyway; the second we will, and the third if resources permit. On 20th of June, our National Coordinator Huang Lin was informed by a caller from Committee of One Hundred (a celebrity Chinese-American an Organization including Connie Chung) that Connie Chung confessed to her sister that she has gotten 1000+ initial protesting letters so far. o Legal actions ============== A most favorable means of legal action is a class action suit against the CBS libel. There are many reasons to file a lawsuit. First, whether we can win or not, a lawsuit is one of the few powerful signals that we can hope to send to CBS to say that we do not accept its slandering. In other words, the filing of the lawsuit itself is important, since it can effectively show that we do take the matter seriously. Second, the lawsuit will itself make news to the media and thus generate the publicity that we so much need and desire. With some good public relations work, we can provide a news peg for the journalists every step of the way, making it expedient for the media to write their stories. On the whole, sustained media attention will only do us more good than harm. Third, the lawsuit will put pressure on CBS to take us seriously. The best thing that can happen to us is that CBS retract its infamous story and apologize publicly to the Chinese community. As the lawsuit drags on (a lawsuit of this nature usually takes a long time to conclude), CBS may find it in their interests to settle the matter out of court by "voluntarily" redressing the wrong that it has done. Fourth, it is not out of the question that we win. Mi Mi's concern over the proof of "intent" is understandable, but may not be entirely warranted. Intent in the eyes of the law does not always require the element of deliberateness, as Mi Mi seems to have assumed. Recklessness and wilful blindness to the nature or consequences of one's action are often equated with intent by the court. Besides, since we as plaintiffs are not public officials, CBS will have to bear the burden of proof, which means once we prove that we have suffered damaged or that the publication was libellous per se, it will up to CBS to disprove intent, not up to us to prove it. The more problematic issue is whether we can by proper rules of construction establish that the CBS story was libellous per se. If we cannot, we will have to demonstrate damages, which can be something that everyone knows about but few can sufficiently prove in the court of law. Many committee members are involved in consulting the lawyers to explore the legal option. Most contacts are made by: * Luo Ning and Huang Lin * Liang Er * Liu Cheng Yan Mr. Zhang Qingsong has forwarded a list of possible legal assistance groups to CBSIC for further contacts around end of May. 1) Legal Consultations: Front 1: Luo Ning and Huang Lin ================================ In June 1, 1994, Huang Lin wrote a letter to Legal Referral Service in New York City requesting reference for lawyers specializing in libel suits. Appendix 3.1 is the content of the letter. The Legal Referral Service has recommended several lawyers. On July 6, 1994, Mr. Huang Lin and I met Mr. Arthur Block, an attorney in downtown Manhattan, on behalf of the CBS Incident Committee. We discussed the possibility of filing a lawsuit against CBS on its 5/19 program. Mr. Block is a high profile solo practitioner in New York City, specialized in libel, slander and civil rights, especially in political and minority cases, referred to us by the Bar Association of New York City. By the way, the Bar Association of NY has provided us with three attorneys but Mr. Arthur Block was the only one who has arranged a meeting with us. Mr. Arthur Block is a Harvard graduate. Our purposes of the meeting: (1) To explore the possibility of filing a lawsuit against CBS; (2) To seek legal advice in a more broader base; (3) To bargain for pro bono service or contingent payment. We had presented the following documents: 1) Transcript (copy from CBS original documents) obtained by Luo Ning from CBS directly; 2) CBS VP's letter to Mr. Shi, a retyped copy, 3) Xiao Dong's Background Study #13, which shows the illegal export case involves China is 3%; 4) Our News Release #1; 5) The tape of the 5/19 report. We could not bring the spy book because it has been out of stock in New York City. Mr. Arthur Block examined the material we had brought to him with keen interest. He understood our outrage instantly and pointed out all the fear we had, and all the possible impact of this report would have on our job application, background clearance, social discrimination and so on. He also pointed out that this report is not balanced, and that is interesting to have a Chinese American to report this program. (1) Mr. Block pointed out that we don't have a case against CBS at the moment from the evidence we presented to him, due to the protection of the First Amendment over the news media. If we are going to proceed with class action suit, we would have to, according to him, prove that CBS intentionally and maliciously presented false information, which is very difficult. (2) On the other hand, Mr. Block suggested that we might consider to go after the author of the book, or his employing government agencies. The author, Mr. Eftimiades in this case, does not have the kind of protection by law that a news agency enjoys. And such a book written by a current agent is very unusual, and Mr. Block pointed out this instantly. What we need to do is to find out evidence in the book which are both false and defamatory. Furthermore, since Mr. Eftimiades is a current employee of an US government agency, if we could find any evidence of linking some government policy with discrimination or slandering against minority ethnic groups, then there will be a case against the government. As an example, Mr. Block specifically mentioned the Waco case in which FBI is charged with defamatory of the Davidian Church and sending the government agents to confront them. To file a freedom of information act is one way to probe such useful information for us. (3) We asked the possibility for him just to file the lawsuit against CBS. He declined and said that a reputable lawyer would not file a lawsuit with little legal bases. (4) Mr. Block is very interested in offering legal advise to us with respect to other means of protest such as boycott. (5) He mentioned one interesting avenue: Every seven years, the license of local stations of TV networks have to be reviewed and renewed by Federal Communications Commission, and this is a channel for people complaining against unfair practices of TV networks. The New York State's reviewing is coming up soon. There must be also other states which are going to review the license this year. This is a great opportunity for us. (6) Unfortunately, Mr. Block is a solo practitioner and his pro bono time has been used up. It is difficult for us to pay for his service without any definitive goals. His rate is $200 per hour. However, Mr. Block is very interested in our case if we have found any trace of wrongdoing by the author. He expressed he would grant us another initial consultation at the same rate if we come up with new evidence against the author and/or the government. The meeting lasted for about 45 minutes. Huang Lin paid $25 for the referral consultation, which was supposed to be 1/2 hour. Front 2: Liang Er ================== Liang Er has contacted Mr. Dan Callister, a famous lawyer on civil rights. The general opinion is that it is very difficult to win this case if we file a lawsuit against CBS. Liang Er also talked to Mr. Richard Shure, a lawyer in D.C. Liang Er told him that we can make more publicity for this case once we file the lawsuit, and through publicity we can fight against CBS more sufficiently, he agreed to start to check related legal regulations in D.C., study the transcript and prepare to file a lawsuit. Liang Er has sent a copy of the tape to him. Front 3: Liu Chengyan ====================== One June 5th, Liu Chengyan reported that he contacted a lawyer (Chinese) who is interested in class action law suit, and worked on locating potential victims. 2) Identifying a Direct Victim of the CBS Report ================================================ It was from the network we first identified a potential victim. Xiao Dong first located a posting from the S.C.C and reposted to the network. Xiao Dong's posting also had himself been identified as a potential volunteer of the committee and he gladly accepted the invitation. Xiao Dong's contribution then proved to be crucial to the committee. One day later, when Liu Chengyan was probing into the legal aspect in the middle west, this piece of information was used to locate the victim. Unfortunately, the victim did not want to get involved, and even refused to answer questions. Appendix 3.2 excerpts the original post on soc.culture.china and some relevant communications. o Research ======== June 7th, Mr. Wang Gongli, from Committee of One hundred, which represents some of the established Chinese in the US, called Mr. Huang Lin on the CBS matter. They discussed the spy book. South China Morning carried a half page report in March, and Mr. Wang feared it would not be contained. Then came the CBS report. He is very cautious about the law suit. He says he fears that such activity will make the case even worse: every body will look for that book and make it better known. His opinion is to make the negative impact minimal, not to stir it. Based on the discussion Mr. Huang Lin initiated the research effort within the CBSIC committee. Mr. Dong Xiao acquired the book, excerpts of the book was discussed within the committee and Mr. Dong Xiao posted a series of analyses on the book and later continued with the study series based on other relevant materials. Mr. Jay Qiu has done library search on important source materials. June 11th, after studying the CBS VP's response letter, Mr. Huang Lin send a memo to the Committee about one of the "facts" the VP used in his letter. Mr. Huang indicated that the illegal export cases was said in the book that, China had 13.4 % of the total such cases. One point is, what about the other countries? Only a few countries are on the list on export ban, such as Soviet Union, form east bloc, Iran, Iraq, etc. If, there are some other countries which had more violation than China, then why pick up China? Then the "one in every eight" is not that impressive. Another point is, at one point the book pointed out some sales did not hide the final destiny was China. So, all of these cases are not stealing: they asked the permission to export, it is up to the US to approve the sale. Huang indicated that if we can point this out, we will further weaken the VP's letter. So, Two pieces of information about illegal exports to China, which was extensively and falsely used as evidence about the alleged spy threat, are compilations of cases from the US Commerce Department and the US Justice Department. We ordered these lists and did statistical analyses on the data. A compilation of the research result is attached. (Attachment 3) o Signature and information collection ==================================== Mr. Huang Yinrong is the signature collector for the CBS Incident Committee. During the first week of call for collecting signatures, there are over 1500 people singed up. Huang Yinrong is also responsible in collecting all relevant information such as addresses, phone numbers of various related organizations. Xinming Lin compiled the following information: 1. major newspapers, TV networks, periodicals; address and fax number (no local CBS stations information) 2. major companies; address only. ============================================================================= *** Special Issue: An Urgent Call for Signatures Against CBS *** ============================================================================= *** Please send your signatures to huangy@sluvca.slu.edu including the signature line in form: SIGNED NAME UNIVERSITY/COMPANY E-MAIL-ADDRESS e.g. SIGNED XXXXX XX St. Louis University xxxx@xxxx.xxx.edu Please collect signatures as more as possible. You may use your e-mail-address for sending other people's signatures. *** The deadline for sending protest letters to media is set to July 16, 1994. All the signatures received before that date will be included in the original letter. All the signatures after that, will be sent separately. o Boycott preparation =================== Boycott is a option that has under discussion and preparation. Besides a law suit, boycott is the most effective way to fight CBS. The reason for CBS to do the spy story is to get more advertisement profit by attracting more viewers who like special noise. Therefore the best way to fight CBS is to make it get just the opposite: either pay a huge sum for a law suit, or lose significantly in ad profit by our boycott campaign, especially when the boycott is related to the huge China market. In the boycott letter to those firms which are doing ad on CBS, we should say that if they keep doing that on CBS, they will lose business in mainland China. We also should set a deadline for those firms, after the deadline we will send a list of offenders to all related government branches and news media in China. We also could write up stories about the CBS incident and media in China would love to carry them. WE CSS could also press on Chinese government to cooperate on the boycott campaign. When some firms get scared and dump CBS, the stock value of CBS will fall and we will bring CBS to its knees. Then an apology and settlement by CBS are more certain. This strategy is also easy to launch. If each and every netters send some letters and stories to his/her hometown and home-province, those firm would suffer a lot in the Chinese market. We must realize that Chinese community itself does not have much weight in against the media giant CBS. However, our purpose is to make public statement through boycott. We should probably not target entire CBS or Connie Chung as an individual, but the CBS Evening News. To make the public statement more effective, we should not only call all the people supporting us to boycott the CBS Evening News, but also to inform all companies doing commercials during the program that we are going to boycott their products, after a specific date if CBS has not made any apology or explanation in public. The idea is to push these companies to call CBS and ask "what's happening?" Again, the whole thing has to be planned and managed well. On June 21 a boycott team has been setup to deal with this option. It consists of Jay Qiu, Rui Sun, Tianyou Li and Liao Yuan Chen. We should have a convincing statistical data to prove that we command a significant portion of the CBS viewers. There is possibly a good opportunity now for us to achieve a positive result from a boycott campaign against CBS. A joint boycott by all or most of our Chinese against CBS broadcasting will possibly be one of the most touching action now for CBS. CBS's evening news is now "enjoying" the lowest rate of audience population (7 to 8 points) among the three giant broadcasting Co. ( NBC has 10 points, and ABC has 12 point respectively). CBS is also suffering the raid from Fox recently for their affiliates. These things may possibly provide us an opportunity for playing a un-ignorable role to CBS. If we get 20.000 Chinese people (about 0.1 point) signed to join together to boycott CBS, and we then convince Nelson rate company that this is a solid figure, the CBS's rate point of audience population might drop down further. If we make this campaign successful, CBS will feel deeply our fighting back by seeing their rate entering into a further jeopardized stage (they will suffer 1.5 % of further business loss, possible even more since CBS earned extra credits from our Chinese community by choosing Connie Chung as Ancho). It should be not too difficult to launch this campaign. If one volunteer collects 1.000 signature in one University campus. 200 university will make 200.000 signatures. o Survey preparation ================== June 15th, Mr. Huang Lin and Mr. Liang Er discussed our legal options. Mr. Liang has contacted with several lawyers and they concluded that a survey may be necessary to prove damages caused by the report. The essence is, we need the fact that the damage exists. It can be in two forms: 1) Potential damage, reputation damage. A opinion survey shows the trend that many Americans who saw the report will think twice to hire a Chinese IS a reasonable, predictable damage to the group. 2) Factual damage, at least one or two solid case on job discrimination. If we want to file a law suit, or if anyone else wants to file, we must have these results. June 24, Shi Jingping drafted a survey questionare for discussion. (See Appendix o Public Demonstrations ===================== There is discussions about public demonstrations. Liang Er is a strong supporter of this action, but some other members are not sure about organizing such activities. It is not a actively pursued option currently on agenda. o Fund raising ============ Fund raising was formally proposed by Chen Jienan to CBSIC on 10th of July, and developed by Liang Er on 12th of July. At this moment, we have two ways to get some fund for CBSIC: fund raising mails, applying fund from relevant foundations or organizations. To raise fund through mails may be the easiest way. However, the cost of regular mails is relatively high comparing to results. Usually, mailing responses are around 5-10% of sent-out mails, and the donations may differ from project to project. However, with a list of 1,500 concerned Chinese and scholars, we may work out much better using the information highway. The IFCSS HQ has discussed with Huang Lin about setting up accounts on 11th of july. Ray Wang drafted a letter. A fund raising board consists of cheng@lamont.ldgo.columbia.edu Frank Zheng fmg@crusher.concert.net Fengmin Gong ji@eng.iac.honeywell.com Kongyun Ji mlei@eos.ncsu.edu minglei ZLIN@c.scs.uiuc.edu Zhe Lin is announced on 13th of July. o Some Local Activities ===================== Mr. Jiang Ping, President of Chinese Students Club in Stanford, and Mr. Tang Pengfei, President of Chinese Students Club in Berkeley, both have agreed to circulate the protesting letter in their local school. Mr. Tang seems very interested in this issue. Mr. Liang Er posted Mr. Huang Lin's letter in the Berkeley Chinese Scholars and Students Association's net, many people have had very positive responses, and Mr. Cai Daqing told me that about 20 students have signed on the letter, while only a small portion of the students staying on campus. Chen Jienan discussed the CBS incident w/ our FACSS/UF leadership and a meeting (picnic) was held to collect signatures and donations for the FCBS committee.Mr. Yang Lei, past president of FACSS/UF, and Mr. Yu Senqiu, new president, sent the names to the committee. Song Jianxiong at Michigan State University distributed the CBS transcript, the National Coordinator's announcement about the CBSIC and the information about the protest signature campaign in a local rally in MSU campus. There is a discussing to have stronger coordination in our nationwide campaign. 1. Functions of each regional coordinator: Each regional coordinator performs definitive projects as we are doing and going to do, and is responsible for getting things done in the region. 2. Methods Identify coordinators or contact persons in each institutions and organizations (not limited to IFCSS members but definitely include all of them) in the region. And then pass along the projects to local coordinators in institutions and monitor the process, get reports and results. The local coordinators can be either local CSSA officials or those who are active in fighting this CBS slander. To include local CSSA Presidents and urge them to set up local/regional committee and act as coordinators in these schools, and please send coordinators e- mail addresses to o\us to be included in our nation-wide committee's list 3. Projects: a) Signature collection in the near future. The committee will release a letter in response to CBS in the very near future. We expect to collect signatures from local institutions each of which amounts to at least in the order of hundreds, which should be a achievable goal, since this letter campaign has zero risk both politically and economically, and certainly is the will of majority Chinese. We also expect signatures from American friends, most of whom should be willing to sign, unless they really think that the Chinese spy threat is real. Most importantly, please collect all the Chinese organization's information and invite them to join our protest. b) Possible surveys There is a discussion about conducting a survey about public opinions to prepare a law suit. If it become reality, it will be conducted through this network. c) Information gathering One immediate task is to collect addresses and phone numbers of local CBS stations and newspapers, campus newspapers and local organizations that may have a interest in the case. d) Possible actions against the CBS. There is also a possibility to call a campaign to boycott the CBS programs and advertisers. It will be organized through this network. Chapter Four: Current Status ----------------------------- All the working committee are currently pursuing their projects. The next round of letter campaign is ready to go. The letter has been publicized and more than 3000 signitures collected. Chapter Five: Future Plan -------------------------- We need concerted actions. We need to liberate ourselves from some undeserved fears. In American politics, if you do not know how to use the media as well as the legal system, you will get nowhere! Certain steps can be taken to assure our control of the situation. We can assign one or a few well informed and knowledgeable people for media interviews, with prior preparations (consult a lawyer before an interview). Written news releases is a way to avoid blowout. Guidelines can be established for individual initiatives. As long as we stay cool and maintain our composure, we should believe in ourselves and feel confident about our actions. Interviews and even ads are needed. No action, no gain! We need to work on several fronts simultaneously: lawsuit, media, inter- organization relations, grassroots campaign, etc. We have nothing to lose by filing a lawsuit with good preparation. a lawsuit serves several purposes: legal redress, pressure that may ultimately lead to an out of court settlement with CBS (minimum goal: a public or at least official apology -- then we can release it to the media), newsworthiness, and community awareness. Publicity is not a choice but a necessity. CBS will not take us seriously, and we may not get a fair hearing, without generating/manipulating some publicity. 1. Goals ========= Minimum goal: Seek a public apology from CBS to ALL CSS, either voluntary or by court injunction. Maximum goal: Seek both monetary compensation and public apology by filing a "class action" lawsuit. To achieve the low goal, the following may be done: (1). Letter campaign to civil and governmental organizations, such as the NAACP, ACLU, Civil Rights division of the Justice Department, the FCC, etc. A coordinated massive mail campaign has started and is continuing. (2). Contact Asian/Chinese civic organizations for help. (3). Press release (fax) to major news organizations. (4). Targeted demonstration (at CBS headquarters). One well organized demonstration will do (for symbolic purposes). If the 1st step does not produce much result, an organized demonstration can be held on a certain date in front of the CBS headquarter and stations around the country. We don't need many persons to draw media attention although more is definitely better. (5). Class action lawsuit. To achieve the maximum goal, a class action lawsuit must be pursued. Remember, a lawsuit will serve not only symbolic purposes, but also practical purposes. Many news organizations may not want to carry our story for lack of substantiation. However, they may be willing to report the lawsuit matter-of-factly. Also, win or lose, a lawsuit will likely discourage similar incident in the future. Furthermore, even without winning the lawsuit and monetary compensation, a lawsuit will provide an effective platform to settle the case with CBS out of court for a public apology (the minimum goal). 2. Some Strategies ================= First of all we are not fighting any single person in CBS such as Connie Chung, nor are we against the CBS as a company. We are fighting the distortion in portraying the image of Chinese people. (1) Connie Chung as a person? No. We must avoid any personal attacks, for that only degrades our own image. She has done other reports on Chinese related topics, many of them are good. We just need to make clear to her and everyone that those of her good doing does not give her right or privilege to defame Chinese, otherwise, she is just selling her Chinese identity in order to please her American colleagues, which no person with dignity will prove. However it has to be made known that a reporter can not escape responsibility for what she or he did. If Connie Chung or any other reporters get an idea that they can do whatever they want to defame the Chinese and only their company will take the heat, they will continue attacking on us! So while the target is the false and distorted report, reporters' names have to be mentioned so they know they are the ones who made mistakes and have to be on the hot seat also. (2) CBS as a corporation? No. What we want to do is to protest its damage to us, and make clear that such act will not go without getting punished. At the same time, we can encourage its positive reporting on Chinese people. (3) The majority of American people? Definitely NOT. What we are fighting against is the anti-immigrant sentiments among them, which is a sign of the decline of this great nation. The strongest ally of this fight of ours is the majority of American people. Can we believe in their conscience? I do. As I said before, if we can't, then there is little we can achieve. Law is not an empty word. In summary, what we are fighting against is not some individual or some group of people, but her/his/their "bad behaviors". If someone(s) insists on "behaving bad", we want to do something to make it costly. In order to achieve that, we must rely on the support of the "good behaviors" that everyone has. This may sound like old rhetoric, but it is an age-tested wisdom. The war between "good" and "evil" would be too simple if it is just between "them" and "us", like some fundamentalists (have you noticed Oliver North lately?) are doing. Fighting alone, the chance of winning is very small. On the other hand, if we could convey our message to American people that we are not only fighting for ourselves as Chinese, but also protecting the fundamental principles of this nation, then we are much stronger. Talking about "good" and "evil", we should not exclude ourselves. Ultimately, the success is dependent upon our own act. Our own fear, impatience, ignorance and arrogance will defeat us if we are unable to overcome them. How do we picture ourselves in this society? A group of "good boys/girls" who know how to behave themselves but do not care much about involving themselves into the dynamics of the mainstream society? Or a group fight-hunger squadrons? Neither will get us far or help to rid of the stereotypes of Chinese people. If we are clear about what we want to be, if we are confident that we are able to establish a positive and participatory image of Chinese in American society, we will be less frustrated and impatient, and fighting each other among ourselves.