Myths and lies persist over Nicaragua

Let’s get it out of the way first because it is an inevitable (if also a bit ridiculous) rebuttal. Daniel Ortega, Nicaragua’s newly re-elected president, may be a political thug in the same way that politicians in most “democracies” are, including the United States. They buy support and form alliances for political advantage and then, after winning office, they decide to push policies the general population opposes. In Ortega’s case, the former is probably true, the latter may not be true. Time will tell, but regardless of what route he takes, he will be accused of treachery from one side or the other.

But this is not about Ortega's behavior. This is about the media's behavior. If current coverage is any cue, the U.S. media will only show the side that agrees with Washington's opinion.

For instance, a recent article published in The Washington Post written by N.C. Aizenman is ridiculously inaccurate and misleading. The scary part is it is only a (extremely) small taste of more to come.

One of the more obvious myths the article pushes is that the Contras were a positive force for democracy in the 80’s. This is rejected by any fair reading of historical facts(click here for a small example). Even Wikipedia is more accurate. The Contras were a U.S. controlled (and created) proxy terrorist force of the right-wing and land owning class in Nicaragua. Oh, and weren’t some of those “rebels” on the CIA payroll anyway?

Through fear and violence, the Contras (and their U.S. backers) only made democracy and free elections more difficult in Nicaragua. For this article to quote statements that the contras “were the ones who gave Nicaraguans their democracy” without a rebuttal is ridiculous in itself. But to also imply, in the face of evidence to the contrary, that the Contras were indeed responsible for democracy and, to add insult to injury, were and are the victims, is beyond comprehension. They were aggressors, plain in simple.

The article makes the implication that the Contras retained some kind of popular support. But then it refutes its own claim when it states the Contras numbered “12,000 at their peek.” I suppose it’s hard to twist facts when even the inflated versions don’t help your case.

The Contras were vastly unpopular and feared in Nicaragua. You get a hint of this in the article. “Everybody there knows what operations you were responsible for, and there may be those who want to take their revenge.” That was a former Contra stating why he didn’t return to his ranch. But this statement leaves you in some kind of limbo, wondering what exactly he means be “operations” and why such a popular democracy promoting group would be so hated that one of its foot soldiers feared facing his neighbors. You would think he would be welcomed as a hero. That is, if we assume the Contras were actually popular. I guess according to Aizenman, disappearances, murders, and torture are all good reasons for love and admiration, especially for the people who had to face the possibility of these pleasantries every day.

And even though the article makes a point of quoting a former Contra who claimed the Sandinista government “gunned down his father and confiscated his family’s cattle ranch” the majority of human rights violations were committed by the U.S. backed Contras, not the Sandinistas. Undoubtedly, things have changed. But present greviances do not change the facts of the past.

Indeed, when compared to other U.S. backed governments in Central America at the time, the Sandinistas were highly passive towards oppositional forces and especially kind to the civilian population. Even election conditions were greatly superior to other countries in the region, especially the U.S. client states El Salvador and Guatemala. (See Herman Chomsky)

Of course comparisons only mean so much. Case studies referenced in many books and articles, most notably in Chomsky’s Manufacturing Consent, show that election conditions in Nicaragua were generally good and the Contras posed a threat to democracy, not an aide.

The main problem with this article is the framing. The Contras come off as victims even though they were the U.S. backed aggressors. Ortega may not be the man for Nicaragua’s future but the article doesn’t want to examine his policies. It only wants to twist facts to sympathize with a history that never happened. Well at least not in the way the article wants it be understood.

But regardless, pushing known myths is still just as dishonest as it was in the 80’s. It’s discouraging (or encouraging, depending on who you ask) to know nothing much has changed in the media's coverage.

Flowers for the clients. Trash for the competition.

Rumsfeld barely scathed

If a former high level U.S. official is being charged for international war crimes, it seems like it would be pretty big news. Maybe someone I know would have heard about it. Well, not when it is a 200 word snippet on page A20 of the Washington Post.

Maybe it has been on the news, though I doubt it.

Maybe the charges were explained in detail. They weren’t.

Maybe the article would mention others who are also being charged. None were.

Hopefully once the case goes forward there will be some truly in-depth reporting on the issue, though it is highly unlikely.

Starbuck's Coffee Conservatives

This isn’t quite a mass media issue but it sure resembles some small aspect of it. Then again, most everything involves some intertwining media issues.

Apparently, conservatives were outraged because too many liberal writers got their little quotes on Starbucks cups. You’ve probably read or seen them at least once. I have, though Starbucks espresso has some kind of weird detergent taste to it that I just can't stand. But sometimes it is just about the only place around.

Anyway, The New Republic has an article about conservative pundits getting all up in arms because they were a marginalized voice on the Starbucks cups. So of course, like any good corporation, Starbucks caved.

Now, conservatives get to be in every Starbucks across the country. Well, at least their quotes get to be on the cups. All this because Concerned Women for America, some fundamentalist conservative Christian group, cried enough. Starbucks, like the media outlets, doesn’t want to take the chance of offending the religious bloc. Too bad. Somebody needs to.

The media on Chavez and Uribe: Client states favored over enemies

Sure, Chavez may have authoritarian tendencies, he may be hostile to the United States, he has made alliances with US enemies, and he has called Bush a donkey.

On the other hand, the United States has a history of supporting violent military coups, at times lending assistance in genocide, other times showing tacit support to dictatorial regimes, and has shown hostility to many democracies in South America, past and present, including Venezuela. To top it off, the US at least showed tacit support for the forced removal of the democratically elected Chavez, at the most had a hand in his kidnapping. The media only ever mentions the possibility of “tacit” support, repeated verbatim across all media channels – as if they have something more substantial than the US governments word to supply as evidence. The Times never even bothers to mention that the real hostility started after the 2002 coup against Chavez in Venezuela which the United States openly supported.

Venezuela’s “leftist” leader may have failed in his attempt to get a Security Council seat but so did Guatemala, the country the right-wing US government was supporting. The Chavez government used tons of money to try to win the vote; however, the US has been using its enormous economic and military power as influence for decades. Something Venezuela could hardly hope to counter.

The Times’ Simon Romero only finds importance in the “limits of the efforts by the Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez, to find a prominent platform for his views.”

This is all typical of the media’s reporting on Venezuela. When Venezuela strengthens ties with countries in opposition to the United States this is depicted as simply “an effort to counter the power of the United States.”

It seems impossible for the media to consider that Venezuela may actually being doing the exact same thing the US claims to be doing when it strengthens ties to not so pleasant bedfellows – simply looking out for their own “national interests.” At least allow the readers to decide without influence from what sounds like a US State Department press release.

Chavez’s government isn’t the only one getting special treatment by the media. A recent article in the Washington Post about landmine use in Colombia left two important factors out of its coverage. One, the US has pushed Uribe to up the intensity of crop eradication and military operations in Colombia - which is highly funded by the US.

Also, the questions surrounding the paramilitary in Colombia were not included in the article. The fact they have not set down their arms and continue a violent rampage of torture, murder and other human rights violations, and that they were not completely exonerated by the cited study of landmine use, is not mentioned.

So which country is the client state?

When in doubt just read the paper.

Richard Dawkins interviews Haggard.

How could I pass this one up? Richard Dawkins interviewed the now dethroned evangelical leader.
Hopefully more evangelicals will end up down this path, and then if we can get past some of our ancient superstitions we can start to get past some of our newer delusions.

Propaganda Machine Churns On

On November 2^nd the New York Times concedes some information about the pressure received from the Pentagon to control media news coverage.

In an article titled, “Pentagon Widens Its Battle To Shape News of Iraq” the Pentagon claims it has expanded its propaganda operations to correct “inaccuracies” about Iraq, Rumsfled’s role there, and while unmentioned, surely to further control the coverage of future Pentagon operations.

While we are able to see a glimpse of the massive onslaught of pressure the media face, the article leaves us wondering on several counts.

For one, has the Pentagon and other government agencies successfully shaped the news in the past? If not, why is the Pentagon only now re-organizing?

Two, if the Pentagon tried to influence the media why does the article give no examples? Is this because they would have to admit past failures and face further profit losses?

Third, where are statistics on the amount of money spent on government public relations? (Our tax money maybe?) And has there actually been a factual inaccuracy the pentagon sought to correct? If so, some examples would be helpful. And if not, then what information is the Pentagon targeting? This may give the reader some insight on their motives.

We do get a hint of what goes on behind the scenes. For instance, one journalist says she was confronted by pentagon officials because of her “tone” after a piece was aired featuring a military general’s comments that the war was “disheartening.” According to the Times the pentagon official responded that he had “challenged the content of television broadcasts before and that it had nothing to do with the reorganization of the press office.”

In other words, this is nothing new.

It isn’t enough for the media to tell the public the government is trying to influence news coverage and twist facts if the they are not willing to admit their own failures and to prevent those failures from reoccurring.

A case study on Washington Post Iraq war Part 1

Below I am republishing a case study I did for a small zine a couple of years ago. It will work as a starting point into media issues which will drive the main subject of this blog. This blog will confront everything from misleading editorials to “news” coverage, as well as other blogs. This will be a multi-part article while I try to keep up with other issues that arise.

Looking back on the week before: A case study on Washington Post Iraq war coverage and placement of information

The Washington Post’s staff makes many editorial decisions about the placement of stories in their coverage. When they place a story on the front page, and another in a middle page, they are saying something about the significance of each story. Common sense, right?

In the pre-war Iraq coverage their decisions were often mind-boggling. For instance, an article on March 13, 2003 entitled, “GOP Uses Remarks to Court Jews; Moran's Comments Cited in New Appeal,” appeared on the front page of the paper. This story appeared three days after Moran made the comments about Jews, and after three days of consecutive coverage of the incident – yet little new information was offered.

On the same day, a story appeared on page A17 entitled, “FBI Probes Fake Evidence of Iraqi Nuclear Plans” which was inarguably more urgent in a country about to go to war with “Fake Evidence” as justification.

The Moran story was only newsworthy because Republicans were able to set the agenda for the news. The article itself charged that this was exactly what the GOP was doing - using Moran’s comments as a political move to court more Jews to support Republicans. The media, however, missed the irony that they were also duped and distracted by a political party with a clear motive – the longer the Moran story was considered newsworthy the less likely other stories would receive as much attention and the more harmful the story would become for a oppositional political figure.

Regardless, the story received front page coverage. Meanwhile, a story about an FBI probe of fake documents that was used by President Bush as evidence of Iraq’s nuclear arsenal was buried in the paper.

On March 15, 2003, two days later, three more articles including, “Moran Gives Up Position in Leadership,” “Jewish Organizations Worried About Backlash for Iraq War; Groups Are Outraged Over Allegations of Warmongering,” and “Questioner Says Moran Should Not Resign,” all appear in The Washington Post. One of the articles once again received front-page coverage. On March 16, 2003, another article on Moran entitled, “Contrite, Combative Moran on the Ropes; Congressman Fights to Survive,” appeared on the front page.

The Washington Post was not out to get Moran, after all, some of these stories had their positive moments. The problem is that the story was consistently on the front page while other stories of much greater urgency were relegated to the back. Worse yet, legitimate concerns and stories relevant to the war were completely ignored, to which we will return later.

If the Bush Administration purposefully mislead the public into a war and used false information to do so, that holds more significance than a senator’s tasteless comments.

The Washington Post made plenty of other questionable decisions. On March 16, 2003, The Washington Post did two stories on the possibilities of a post-war Iraq. However, while the story mentioned above, “Contrite, Combative Moran on the Ropes; Congressman Fights to Survive,” was on the front page of The Washington Post on March 16, 2003, “Stability of Regional Politics Is At Stake in Bid to Topple Hussein” was on Page A13. The buried story took a look at possible outcomes of an Iraq war but managed to never stray outside the accepted bounds of elite political thought. The story examined the possibility of civil war, a populist government who would not want to deal with the U.S. setting an example for other Middle Eastern countries, regional instability, and the possibility of the war encouraging Islamic fundamentalists. Another story on page A13 entitled, “Striking Iraq Could Fuel Further Attacks on U.S.” examined other possibilities including that the war could encourage more extremist groups, help extremist groups recruit members, and turn the international community against the United States. Neither of these stories appeared in the front of the paper, which downplayed their importance and implied that Moran’s political career is more important than the effects of a war with Iraq.

Even the stories that did appear never examined the historical record of previous US involvement in other third world countries like Guatemala, Chile, Nicaragua, Iran, or even Iraq itself. The stories never examined the United States support of terror, puppet leaders, faked elections, dictatorial governments, military rule, and genocide in these, and other current and former client states. Thus the media failed to present the war in Iraq in any meaningful way, not only failing to break out of the propaganda model, but also failing to present the news in a minimally informative manner.

Hitchens at it Again

Christopher Hitchens argues Ari Fleischer’s comments on September 17th, 2001 that “all Americans need to watch what they say, watch what they do” amounts to nothing more than a “slightly unfortunate” choice of words and other interpretations implying anything more sinister “should now be put to rest.” His main point, though slightly buried in his post, is that the fear present in the United States is due to the “loud and gloating statements and actions, made and taken by people who thirst to kill us” and do not originate from other sources, such as government officials. To write otherwise, he claims, appears “grotesque” and “very slightly worrying.”

Hitchens is right to criticize Krugman and co’s interpretation of Ari Fleischer’s speech. He is wrong, however, to assume the negation of Krugman’s point proves his own.

Hitchens believes Krugman misinterpreted Ari Fleischer’s comments because Fleischer’s comments were actually a “mild rebuke” directed at a fellow republican and that Fleischer was simply asking for a “politically correct respect for civility in a rather testing time.” In Hitchens quest to defend Fleischer he conveniently misses other possibilities. For example, it hardly seems logical that Fleischer, an experienced communicator, did not realize the implications and strength of his words especially when he is asking others to watch their own. Even the irony seems lost on Hitchens who is too busy trusting Fleischer because of his “herbivorous” character.

It is also rather obvious in the transcript that Fleischer is making an association between Bill Maher’s criticism of U.S. policy and a Republican congressman’s stereotyping and borderline racism. Isn’t that, at least indirectly, sending a message to Americans about what is allowed in the public discourse and what is considered to be on the fringe? Hitchens fails to even consider such a question. Furthermore, Hitchens’ claim that Fleischer is simply making a plea for “civility in a rather testing time” implies Fleischer is making a temporary request of the American people. This is contradicted in the very same transcript by Fleischer when he states, “This is not a time for remarks like that; there never is.”

Lastly, Hitchens believes Krugman and others are wasting their “privilege” as columnists by writing about “the Fleischer reign of terror” while terrorists “thirst to kill us.” But Hitchens is so quick to criticize and bicker with his colleagues that he no longer realizes that part of the journalist's job is to be a check on the government and others who hold powerful positions in society. Today, in times of war and terrorism, this is more important than ever.