Not fun and games

It's hard to underestimate the impact on people's views of the blaring headlines and media frenzy that accompanies a 'scandal'. Things get seared into the collective psyche--Wen Ho Lee was a spy, Richard Jewell the Olympic bomber, Iraq behind 9/11--that defy future developments or corrections, which never get the level of saturation of the original.

It's not just a matter of going with what we know at the time, either; certain people and countries never get the benefit of the doubt, aren't treated as 'us' and therefore prejudices are allowed to run roughshod over the unnatural-feeling task of restraint and the unsexy act of deliberation.

You can blame the media for sensationalism, or going for cheap ratings--but then you're divesting yourself of responsibility for the prejudices that allowed you to swallow the story in the first place.

Why didn't your gut tell you that something was being overhyped? Why didn't you have a sense that something was amiss? Because the story fit all too neatly into your map of the world.

Journalists as simply people; there are formal processes and structures set up so their flaws don't get magnified into print or air, and for the most part these safeguards work.

However, where they fall down is when journalists assume something is so obvious that they don't consciously think to question it--the everybody knows Iraq has WMDs, everybody wants to be patriotic in a time of war, nobody wants to second-guess the military while Americans are dying mentality that didn't get shaken until the horrors of reality became impossible to process within the existing frame.

By then, of course, it's too late; you have a small number of people telling you I told you so, while everybody else is in denial and the media starts looking for villains--if only Dr. Freud were around to indict all of us (or our mothers).

All this comes to mind with an article in today's Times, Mattel Apologizes to China for Recalls .

U.S.-based toy giant Mattel Inc. issued an extraordinary apology to China on Friday over the recall of Chinese-made toys, taking the blame for design flaws and saying it had recalled more lead-tainted toys than justified.

The gesture by Thomas A. Debrowski, Mattel's executive vice president for worldwide operations, came in a meeting with Chinese product safety chief Li Changjiang, at which Li upbraided the company for maintaining weak safety controls.

''Our reputation has been damaged lately by these recalls,'' Debrowski told Li in a meeting at Li's office at which reporters were allowed to be present.

''And Mattel takes full responsibility for these recalls and apologizes personally to you, the Chinese people, and all of our customers who received the toys,'' Debrowski said. ...

Mattel ordered three high-profile recalls this summer involving more than 21 million Chinese-made toys, including Barbie doll accessories and toy cars because of concerns about lead paint and tiny magnets that could be swallowed.

The recalls have prompted complaints from China that manufacturers were being blamed for design faults introduced by Mattel.

On Friday, Debrowski acknowledged that ''vast majority of those products that were recalled were the result of a design flaw in Mattel's design, not through a manufacturing flaw in China's manufacturers.''

Lead-tainted toys accounted for only a small percentage of all toys recalled, he said, adding that: ''We understand and appreciate deeply the issues that this has caused for the reputation of Chinese manufacturers.''

In a statement issued by the company, Mattel said its lead-related recalls were ''overly inclusive, including toys that may not have had lead in paint in excess of the U.S. standards.

''The follow-up inspections also confirmed that part of the recalled toys complied with the U.S. standards,'' the statement said, without giving specific figures.

The co-owner of the company that supplied the lead-tainted toys to Mattel, Lee Der Industrial Co. Ltd., committed suicide in August shortly after the recall was announced.

It's the third item on the Times' website; and buried among headlines everywhere else.

It seemed obvious to me when it all broke a few weeks ago that Mattel's campaign blaming China was ridiculous. The problems were so widespread and the recall so big it clearly wasn't the result of some rogue factory--Mattel, thus, was guilty of a systematic failure to properly oversee its own products.

But it fed so well into the China-bashing that's become part of our culture that everyone ate it up. We already all think of China as the Wild West; there's already a significant part of Americans who are bigoted against the Chinese, a racism with hundreds of years of formal and de facto roots in the U.S.

Stir that in with an all-American company like Mattel's motivation to deflect blame, and our underriding fear of being overtaken by the Chinese juggernaut, and you have a scapegoat.

Notice that the retraction was made in China, by the way--if Mattel were serious about it, they should take out full-page ads and buy airtime in the American media, because left to its own whims this isn't nearly as sexy a story for 'free media' as the original charges.

This isn't to say China doesn't have serious, 'The Jungle'-type problems. But let's not use that as a whitewash for the very-American problems of corporate malfeasance and lack of oversight that Mattel should become the poster child for.

Of course, this being China, you also have this:

Li reminded Debrowski that ''a large part of your annual profit ... comes from your factories in China.

''This shows that our cooperation is in the interests of Mattel, and both parties should value our cooperation. I really hope that Mattel can learn lessons and gain experience from these incidents,'' Li said, adding that Mattel should ''improve their control measures.''

Maybe Mattel can write some self-criticisms.

Or maybe we, as the American people, should examine why we find it so easy to see Muslims as terrorists, curse Indians for bad tech support, demean the Japanese (did you miss the profound racism in Lost in Translation?), ignore Africa, look down on illegal immigrants.

These things shouldn't come so easy to us, shouldn't be such a familiar narrative frame; they shouldn't go unquestioned, seeped up in the air around us--and we shouldn't blame the media for tapping into our national neuroses.

Jim Young photo from Reuters via MSNBC