I sent the following letter to the news journal Multinational Monitor after they published in their May 2000 issue an article that I wrote for them at their request. I informed them at the time that I would also treat this as an "open letter". To my surprise, since they had not indicated that they would do so when they replied to me, they did print my letter in their July/August issue, with their answer. Though I consider their reply inadequate in addressing my main objection--the altering and use of my piece in a way clearly opposed to my own viewpoint--my main concern was to make clear to those who had read the article that I did not agree with their editorial position.
I am sending the letter out more broadly both to reaffirm that point, and to forewarn others that they should be more careful than I naively was in how their own written material gets used. Please feel free to forward it to others who might want to see it.
Thanks,
Robert Weil
To: Charlie Cray, Associate Editor, Multinational Monitor
I was extremely angry to find, upon receiving copies of the May 2000 issue of Multinational Monitor in which my article on China was published, that the title of the piece had been changed from the neutral sounding "The Effect of WTO Entry on the Chinese Rural Sector," to the slanted "Doomed Harvest: How PNTR and the WTO Threaten to Drive Chinese Farmers Off the Land." Though we had on at least two occasions discussed changing the wording of the text of the article, the title alteration was made without consultation, much less agreement, on my part. In fact, following these earlier textual changes, there is no mention of PNTR at all left in this piece.
You are well aware of this, since it was due to your objecting to them that I deleted from the article several long passages that made clear my opposition to the anti-PNTR drive, as well as the attempt to keep China out of the WTO. This included such statements as:
"Keeping China out of the WTO or denying it permanent NTR status as a result of U.S. governmental action will not protect the peasants from the effects of 'globalization' or promote their interests. It will only raise the specter once again of historic discrimination against the Chinese and their subordination to outside political forces, and as such it is certain to be resisted."
Though in reviewing my first draft you stated that "we will almost certainly end up editing out the editorial comments about the WTO etc. at the end, as that's not the Monitor style," leading me to remove them from later drafts, I can no longer accept at face value that this was the only reason for your objection. Apart from the insipid "Doomed Harvest"--not the kind of hyperbole I like--by changing the title of my article, you made it appear that I supported the overall theme of your May 2000 issue, which included an editorial titled "The Case Against China PNTR," as well as several other articles and interviews, including one with Wei Jingsheng, supporting that position. Though from our very first conversation I asked what else would be included in the issue, I was given no hint of this overall tone to its political content.
I consider the anti-PNTR campaign especially discriminatory, since it subjects China to special requirements not applied to other nations, and assumes that the United States has the moral authority to pass judgment on the Chinese. While it can at least be argued that keeping China out of the WTO serves the larger goal of trying to end that institution altogether, I still oppose Chinese exclusion as the best way to do so. I have over the past few months taken an active and outspoken role in both private meetings and public forums in opposing this punitive and exclusionary approach to China.
You perhaps had no obligation to inform me of the approach you were taking in the issue, but you had no right to change the title of my article to imply that I agreed with it, especially after removing the very passages that made clear my opposition. Further conveying this implication, in your own signed piece in the issue, "The Joys of PNTR, According to the Fortune 500," you specifically refer readers to my article. To distort my position in this manner was both a personal affront to me as well as a form of unethical journalism.
It is ironic that a magazine founded by Ralph Nader, who has done so much to promote truth in advertising and other similar protections, should stoop to this kind of manipulation in order to further your own political agenda. I assume that Nader had no direct hand in this, but it is worth noting that he has called the granting of PNTR to China "horrible," and that other organizations that he founded, notably Public Citizen, were among the most open "China-bashers" in the anti-PNTR campaign. Not so much the journalistic style, but the content of the May 2000 issue, is therefore in line with this overall approach taken by Nader and his associates.
I am sorry that an article which I wrote at your solicitation and in good faith has been misused in this way. I request that this letter be published in the next available issue of Multinational Monitor as a way of correcting any implication that I supported the continued annual review of NTR status of China or its exclusion from the WTO.
Robert Weil