Another nice blog brought to you by Joe Emersberger. Read his letter to the UK Independent with his brief introduction, below.
Sometimes the media will be honest about an issue, then disregard what it
has documented at a future time when the information becomes much more
embarrassing to Power.
The case of Luis Posada Carriles comes to mind.
It’s possible that sometimes this happens because journalists don’t bother
to research a topic in their own newspaper. The drive for profits results in
two scenarios – sloppy low cost work that relies on quick government or
corporate handouts, or conscious self censorship. [Maybe some combo of the two would be a third scenario]
I don’t recall ever seeing a situaton as occured over the past few days with
Independent’s reporting on Haiti. An article by Andrew Buncombe was about as
good as you’ll ever see in the corporate press. The day before an article by
Phil Davison that was horrible – a regurgitation of propaganda by the
Haitian elite and their foreign backers.
Here is what I wrote to Davison:
RE: Independent: UN’s chief peacekeeper is found dead in Haiti hotel:
9/1/2006
Mr. Davison:
Your article relies on the Haitian police, MINUSTAH and the Haitian business
community to inform your readers about Haiti. With such a one-sided choice
of sources it is no surprise that there is no mention of the widespread human
rights violation which these groups have committed. There is no mention of
their victims, no mention of political prisoners.
Why do refer to members of the business community as “some political
leaders”? The business elite called for a strike to prod the UN to be even more
brutal in their attacks on Haiti’s poor. Why is that obscured?
Do you know about any of this? If not, I suggest you read today’s article on
Haiti by Andrew Buncombe. [1] In fact, you could have learned much by reading articles by Buncombe written months ago. [2] He gave voice to political
prisoners, to MINUSTAH;s victims, to independent filmmaker, activist (and Haitian resident) Kevin Pina. Did it ever occur to you that there was another side to the story? Did it ever occur to you to read your own newspaper?
Joe Emersberger
[1http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article337553.ece
[2] INdependent: UN admits Haiti force is not up to the job it faces
: Andrew Buncombe: July 30, 2005
_http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article302259.ece_
(http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article302259.ece)
_http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article297624.ece_
(http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article297624.ece)
_http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=630156_
(http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=630156)
