Furor Over Wong’s Visit to Beijing

I have just read “Chinese Kissinger Stirs Furor in Southland” (Metro, July 7) concerning Dr. Daniel Wong’s visit to Beijing. The article stated in part that “Indeed, the communist party-run media portrayed Wong, 47, as a prominent Chinese-American with a farsighted view of the bloody crackdown against protesters in Tian An Men Square a month ago. Wong was quoted as saying the ‘government did not want bloodshed, they wanted peace.’ ”

Considering that the media are “Communist Party run,” the news report could be just another fabricated lie--who knows, it may not be true.

But, are our media any better? We all hope so, yet many people, perhaps with good reason, are skeptical about the honesty of our news services. This distrust is heightened by reports such as the one that appeared on the same day as the Wong article in Newsmakers (Part I).

In what was billed as a one-on-one exchange between CBS anchorman Dan Rather and presidential candidate George Bush last year, the report now reveals that cue cards were used by a Bush aide to provide him with his seemingly spontaneous ripostes. Of course, none of those at home in front of their TV saw Roger Ailes sitting under the camera, cue cards in hand.

The Rather-Bush exchange was a staged media event, not honest news. The public was duped into seeing and believing things about Bush that may not be true. At least this news got into print in The Times.

GARY HAMUD

Rosemead