-Caveat Lector-
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/9945/hentoff.shtml
Published November 10 - 16, 1999
Time Inc. editor in chief Norman Pearlstine: Business trumps
human rights.
(photo: Marina Garnier)
NAT HENTOFF
Time Warner and Human Rights
Press Lords Bow to a Torturer
he Committee To Protect Journalists is the most valuable of all
press organizations because it goes beyond First Amendment
rights here at home to safeguard the right of all journalists in the
world to be protected from governments that imprison, torture, and
sometimes murder reporters who tell the awful truth. On November
23, in the Grand Ballroom of the Waldorf-Astoria, the Committee To
Protect Journalists will hold its Ninth Annual International Press
Freedom Awards Dinner-for the benefit of the committee.
Chairman of the event is Norman Pearlstine, editor in chief of Time
Inc.
The same Mr. Pearlstine figured prominently in Cynthia Cotts's
Press Clips in the October 12 Voice ("Chasing the Dragon: Time
Warner Goes to China and Gets Shanghaied by Its Hosts").
In describing the grand scope of Time Warner's recent tribute to the
Chinese government, which was held in Shanghai and later Beijing,
Human Rights in China-a New York?based organization that
monitors how that totalitarian government crushes free speech and
free press-reported:
"Entitled 'China: The Next 50 Years,' the Time Warner conference
from September 27 to 29 gathered more than 500 CEOs,
academics, economists, and government officials, including
Chinese president Jiang Zemin, who gave the keynote address.
"Among the U.S. executives on the conference roster were those
who control a vast share of the American media, including Jack
Welch of General Electric, which owns NBC; Gerald Levin of Time
Warner; and Sumner Redstone of Viacom [which recently
swallowed CBS]."
Norman Pearlstine was a principal participant in the conference.
Also present for this celebratory occasion, as Cynthia Cotts noted,
were top executives of Bertelsmann (owners of the Random House
compound), America Online, and Yahoo!.
Lest these powerful lords of the media feel at all embarrassed at
being the guests of a government that continues to imprison people
simply for advocating democracy, Henry Kissinger, of course,
appeared on CNN to assure us and the world that China has made
"considerable progress" on human rights and that, God forbid, any
confrontation on that subject during the conference might
jeopardize "the American national interest."
This is the same statesman who, during the state terrorism in
Chile, praised Pinochet in the name of our national interest.
A.M. Rosenthal in The New York Times furiously and admirably
protested the American conferees' obeisance to state terrorism in
China. And in an attempt to alert those media giants about the
gulags they were condoning, a meeting was held on September 16
with Norman Pearlstine. As editor in chief of Time Inc., he also
oversees Fortune magazine.
Fortunewas the convener of these congratulations to China for 50
years of contempt for human rights.
At the meeting with Pearlstine were Xiao Qiang, executive director
of Human Rights in China, and Robert Bernstein, who should get
the Nobel Peace Prize for his pioneering work in advancing human
rights around the world. They urged Pearlstine to make human
rights in China a primary focus of the Shanghai conference.
As Cynthia Cotts reported, Pearlstine said he understood the
human rights issue, but for business reasons, the decision had
already been made to exclude it from the agenda.
In a September 20 letter, Xiao Qiang and Robert Bernstein told
Pearlstine that excluding human rights as a major topic of
discussion was "an unconscionable omission" because "Beijing
and the rest of the world must not believe that major American
media and the international business communities have declared
human rights a nonissue now or in the future. . . .
"Your decision will greatly increase the peril of those who are
imprisoned in China just because of what they write and say. As
the chairman of the annual dinner for the Committee To Protect
Journalists this year, you clearly have your own strong concerns for
the principle of free expression that Time and Fortune have long
represented. [Emphasis added.]
"Therefore we urge you again to place human rights on the public
agenda. We strongly believe this could make a difference."
Pearlstine, despite his admitted concerns for free expression, was
not persuaded. Business is business.
At the Shanghai conference, there was a reference to human rights
in China in a panel on China's legal system (an obvious oxymoron).
But this issue, so excruciatingly pressing for those in work camps
for very long sentences, was not at the center of the conference.
Instead, the CEOs feted president Jiang Zemin.
A spokesman for Time Inc., explained that human rights were not
addressed by the full conference because "it was a business
meeting, not to say that people were not aware of the situation."
Evil persists when American media barons censor themselves at
the very site of governmental brutality and torture of dissenters.
Norman Pearlstine tells me that since I have not been in China, I
am not aware that "China is demonstrably more free today than it
was 25 years ago." I told him that a Catholic priest who refuses to
renounce the Vatican had his legs broken by police last December
in Hebei just after being released from a labor camp. How does
Pearlstine define "freedom"?
The Committee To Protect Journalists informs me that it "is
extremely concerned about China's abysmal record on press
freedoms . . . and wishes that any group meeting in China would
address head on" that issue.
In its statement, the committee did not mention its choice of
Norman Pearlstine to be chairman of its November 23 Freedom
Awards dinner.
Tell us what you think. [EMAIL PROTECTED]
--
Kathleen
"In the grim light of Kosovo, it is time to ask the obvious question: Should President
Clinton's national security team be repl
aced by a ham and cheese sandwich?" - Michael Kelly
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