Thanks, as always, to Eugene for the invitation to guest-blog here
again. It’s always a pleasure.
Yesterday Eugene critiqued a letter I signed in which a group of historians and researchers (including me) complained of the decision made by many TV and radio shows to present, without opposition, Michelle Malkin’s revisionist account of the Japanese American internment. (Malkin argues in her book “In Defense of Internment” that the eviction, removal, and detention of 112,000 people of Japanese ancestry in World War II were all justified by solid evidence of widespread espionage by Americans of Japanese ancestry both before and after Pearl Harbor. My (and historian Greg Robinson’s) debunking of Malkin’s revisionism is here.)
Eugene says that the phrasing of the letter “will likely sound to many
like a guild guarding its professional turf against upstart competition, not a substantive critique that should make the media or viewers take notice.” The problem, Eugene says, is that the letter buried [the lead—which is that Malkin’s book gets history very wrong—]under a different lead that . . . frames the argument exactly the way that professional academics ought not frame it—at least if they want to persuade their lay readers.”
I’ve thought about this a good bit since yesterday. I agree with Eugene’s assessment of how many people are likely to read the first few sentences of the letter, especially those who come to the debate suspicious of academics in the first place. I wish I could go back in time and make some of Eugene’s suggestions before I signed it.
But I don’t regret signing it, even in the format in which it appears, because the letter points out something very important—something that Eugene’s well-taken criticism of the rhetoric misses.
The premise of Eugene’s criticism is that, in the controversy stirred by the publication of Malkin’s book, “a substantive critique” actually has a chance of “mak[ing] the media or viewers take notice,” and that it has a shot at reaching, let alone “persuading,” some appreciable number of “lay readers.”
Since Malkin published this book several weeks ago, she has presented her historical account of “vast networks of Japanese American spies”—unopposed—on probably a half-dozen prime time shows on cable television (Fox, MSNBC, CNBC, HBO, C-SPAN (although that one wasn’t primetime)) and many, many national and local radio programs. On just two occasions, both of them on local radio (one in Philadelphia and one in North Carolina), I was invited to present an opposing view and did so. On a third occasion (also on local radio in Philadelphia), I was invited to present a response after Malkin spoke, but the show apparently thought better of it after hearing from Malkin for 15 minutes and hung up on me before giving me a chance to speak so that they could take “an important call from the Republican National Convention.” (I wasn’t in the listening area so I never learned who the caller was.)
The result of this one-sidedness is exchanges like this wrap-up exchange at the end of her interview yesterday on WPHT radio in Philadelphia:
Radio Host: The bottom line here, Michelle, is don’t let your kids be taught that we did despicable things to the Japanese Americans during World War II, ’cause it ain’t true.
Malkin: That’s right.
One might say, “Well, if you want to get the opposing views out there, you need to do more than gripe about it in some lame letter; you need to appeal directly to these shows to present an opposing view.” But here’s the thing: I (and others) have done just that. I have approached each and every radio and television show that has showcased Malkin for the last several weeks—in most instances (when I was able to learn of it) before Malkin’s appearance—and made the substantive case that Malkin’s book presents a history so false that it amounts to a smear on the reputation of an entire ethnic group (not to mention a brief for the mass internment of Arabs and Muslims). In not one instance has any show—radio or television—agreed to present an opposing view; they’ve just presented Malkin. (The two local radio shows on which I did appear approached me because their producers had seen my blog.)
And the book, as of last weekend, was at #31 on the New York Times bestseller list, and has hovered near the top of amazon.com’s sales list for several weeks now.
So, while Eugene might deem Greg Robinson’s and my substantive case that Malkin is wrong to be “a point that should be persuasive to media and to viewers, and that appeals to acknowledged media ethics,” and that should lead the media to conclude “that at least some contrary voices should be called on to rebut her arguments,” the fact is that it hasn’t.
I know, I know: some are already itching to fire off an email to me telling me that I’m just jealous because Michelle Malkin’s book is selling like hotcakes and being talked about on TV and radio while mine didn’t and isn’t. Please. Anybody who thinks my efforts of the last few weeks have been about selling books doesn’t know me at all (and doesn’t know my book). Amazon had two hardcover copies of my book left in stock 3 weeks ago, and—guess what!—it still has two hardcover copies of my book left.
This isn’t about selling books, and it isn’t about getting my handsome mug on TV or my mellifluous voice on the radio. It’s about countering, in the only way I know how, the stunningly successful spread of false insinuations about the loyalty and conduct of a group of Americans I’ve come to know and care deeply about.
By the way, for those who are curious, I have assumed that the name “Historians’ Committee for Fairness” is just a play on the “Fair Play Committee,” an organization that formed at one of the ten Japanese American Relocation Centers to protest the government’s program of eviction and incarceration. I don’t know for sure, as I didn’t organize the letter-writing effort. But I don’t think it’s anything more than that. Certainly it’s not the name of a longstanding, established organization such as the American Association of University Professors or the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.
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