Read Online Eve of a Hundred Midnights by Bill Lascher - Free Book Online Page A

rejected the paper, to give a talk at Sigma Delta Chi’s annual convention, an event that was coming to the Bay Area in part because of Mel’s lobbying. Fearful that he would have to spend another year in school, Mel pushed Leong to wrap up his work. Somehow, by working through the night for days on end, they managed to wrestle their thesis into a form that Bush found more than acceptable.
    It’s unclear just why Bush changed his opinion so quickly. It’s possible that Bush never was as disappointed in Mel as Mel had told his mother Bush was. In any case, Mel and Charlie analyzed 2,000 stories in three San Francisco newspapers forthe thesis. They also interviewed dozens of reporters in China, Japan, and the United States, trying to assess how the California press handled news from China and Japan and why U.S. journalism standards prevented adequate coverage of events in the two Asian countries. They found that West Coast papers lacked permanent correspondents in China and Japan, and that the correspondents they did have reported to editors who were unfamiliar with East Asia. As a result, fabricated stories could go unchecked, and editors with no knowledge of China or Japan made unreasonable requests of contributors.
    Mel had observed these problems firsthand when he was interviewed by San Francisco reporters upon returning from his year abroad.
    â€œNot one asked about the background of war and its effects,” Mel wrote in the thesis. “Each reporter pointed his questions during the interview towards eliciting responses which would give him a ‘horror’ angle for his story—as in the oft repeated question: ‘Did you see anyone killed?’”
    In their conclusion, Mel and Charlie outlined numerous problems that plagued journalists’ coverage, such as their attempts to appeal to the demands of uninformed audiences; their biases based on their source networks, knowledge, and political preferences and the editorial policies of their publications; language difficulties; and censorship. Mel and Charlie wrote:

    Until Americans are educated to the Far East and supplied with a sufficient background to enable an intelligent interpretation of events, news of China and Japan will continue to be built around spectacular and sensational overt events. Only those stories which fit the general news pattern will find their way into print. The more subtle, yet far-reaching movements, [such] as the mounting class warin China, will remain obscure to the American public. It will remain so until Americans either awaken to the fact that the Far East is no longer 8,000 miles away, or events in the Orient will prod the U.S. into action.
    Mel and Charlie presented their paper at the Golden Gate International Exhibition in San Francisco, which was organized by Stanford president Ray Lyman Wilbur. A sort of complement to the World’s Fair in New York, the Golden Gate International Exhibition focused on solidifying bonds among the nations of the Pacific Rim. When Mel, Shirlee, and another friend visited the exposition that summer prior to his presentation, they toured the expo’s outsized pastiche of tourist kitsch, simplified presentations on Pacific cultures, and showcases of the latest scientific discoveries. Its highly touted features included a giant half-ton fruitcake baked in the Southern California enclave of Ojai with fifty dozen eggs and other outsized ingredients, a permanent burlesque exhibit called “Sally Rand’s Nude Ranch,” and the “fascinating story” of “SEX HORMONES,” which “play a vital role in making woman what she is! In making man what he is!”
    Cheesy displays aside, the exposition represented the height of New Deal optimism in a manner reminiscent of the utopian vision that Mel had laid out in that citizenship paper he’d written four years earlier, when he was starting out at Stanford. The event was an opportunity to present