In today's NY Times reporter Juan Ferero advocates a hard line against indigenous protesters who want the current government to increase taxes on natural gas and oil that is exported from the country. JF bemoans "choking protests that ... had made the country nearly ungovernable." He also seems clearly sympathetic to the President who has tendered his resignation to gain support for his sop to multinational bankers and energy corporations. And why are they in such a quandry (choking protests) according to the Times reporter? Because he has not stood up to the protesters with deadly force. "Antigovernment leaders retain solid backing and have been emboldened by Mr. Mesa's repeated assurances that he will never use deadly force to control protests." He leaves us with the quote from a right wing analyst from Miami who say's the president "Mesa has to understand that governments have the right, the legitimate right to use force" to deal with the protests.
Here's why the Times reporter is wrong.
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9 comments:
He does no such thing.
There are plenty of legitimate targets for media criticism, but editing quotes and taking statements out of context is not honest debate.
To be specific, the first line you refer to, when seen in its entirety, says:
"In what seemed a calculated political gamble, President Carlos Mesa of Bolivia offered Congress his resignation on Monday in the face of road-choking protests that he said had made the country nearly ungovernable."
The reporter does not say the protests had made the country ungovernable, the President said that. The story later reports that the protests were in fact road-choking, since they had shut down major highways. That such statements of fact are taken by highly idealogical bloggers as proof of bias is one of the major challenges for journalists today.
This is a story about significant political events in the country. I don't know how you would cover such events, but I probably would feel it necessary to mention protests that blocked roads. I would also report the views of the opposition, as this reporter has done in quoting Columbia's top indigenous leader. The vast majority of the story does not talk about the use of deadly force, but it does come up, and I believe appropriately so.
I have no idea what the reporter "seems" to feel. Bloggers regularly read motivations and sympathies into journalism that only exist in their minds. But Ferero quite clearly does not state an opinion about the use of deadly force.
You talk about the story's mention of Mesa's promise not to use deadly force. But that is an important point, since previous governments have used such force, as the story explains. I don't understand how anyone could argue that this is not relevant to the story. Nowhere in the story does Ferero give any hint that he advocates such practices, and your headline is incredibly deceptive.
And here's that final, radical quote:
"Mesa has to understand that governments have the right, the legitimate right, to use force," said Eduardo Gamarra, the Bolivian-born director of the Latin America and Caribbean Center at Florida International University in Miami. "You can't just burn down a building or take over a government building because you don't like government policy."
What main ideas does the reader come away with after reader this story?
1) The President is being beseiged by unreasonable Indians who are wrecking the economy and making the place "ungovernable."
2) The President is being reasonable because he has to pay transnational corporations because "their proposal would drive away investors."
3) Deadly force should be used because otherwise the Indians will keep protesting and this all should happen because Bolivians are "tired of relentless protest."
No effort is made to establish a context for the indigenous movements' anger. Stability is accepted as a good. Paying off banks and making profits is accepted as something we all have to do so these Indians should get with the program.
Did you read the aticles about the Ukrainian opposition and the Lebanese opposition in the Times and elsewhere? They have an ideological bias towards "freedom and democracy" (terms that mean different things to different people). I am not saying that they shouldn't but what I am saying is that if you deny their ideological nature you are wrong.
We all put forward an ideological position when we edit. This journalist CLEARLY has a bias towards stability and is sypathetic to the current Bolivian President.
The indigenous movents in Bolivia are pissed because for 400 years they have been ruled by the white elite and have some of the lowest standards of living even though they sit on a wealth of natural resources. The issue that has sent people into the streets of late is the idea that transnational corporations should be the vehicles for delivering water to the people and should be the institutions that control the energy sector. Governments have fallen because they have promised that privatization will increase the standard of living of the majority and they haven't.
The only mention of this in said article is his reference to the "hated French-owned company that runs the waterworks." And who doesn't hate French-owned water works anyway?
I reject the idea that I quoted anything in this article out of context. The entire article is a classic piece of propoganda for stability which in Bolivian terms means more neo-liberal policies that rob the country of its natural resources dressed up as "objective" reporting.
I read the story and had a much different notion of what the writer was saying than you did. I didn't come away from the story with any of the three points you say "the reader" would have.
So is my reading invalid?
Not every news story can contain a history lesson. 400 years of history is a lot to fit into a 500 word story. If you were only arguing that the writer should have included more context, I would not have had the same reaction.
But you put words in his mouth. He did not say the things you say he said. Whatever his biases are (and they are much less clear to me than they are to you), he deserves a more honest reading.
So is my reading invalid? Given your comments I would think your answer is yes.
Objective reporting is a scam. Old issue. I prefer coming closer to the truth, yes I think there is such a thing.
The NY Times has a nationalist and liberal bias. This means they want the US to prosper in the world and they want a private economy and a representative government around the world. They hire people with a similar bent. This is not a mystery. They would not hire a person who interviewed only fundamentalists when covering religion or only Cuban communists when discussing political economy and international relations.
In the Bolivia story the journalist represented his bias that stability was a good. Stability for Bolivia means having the lowest standard of living in the world for indigenous people. You don't need twelve volumes of context to represent this idea, I saw none. The protests were seen as inhibiting that stability thus shooting should ensue.
Journalist cannot hide behind the veil of objectivity when contributing to an international system that leaves a third of the planet making less than $2 a day. Or in this country where we pay more for health care and live shorter lives in comparison to other industrialized countries. If all we did was report what government representatives and business leaders and their flaks say we would think that the international economy was huming along and raising the world's people out of misery, it ain't and it's the presses job to report the truth not what hacks want us to think.
What about Chris Matthew's? Is he an objective journalist? He has all sides on his show?
Your criticisms of the media and journalism are very common and have some valid aspects to them. What I find invalid is taking a story and drawing conclusions about what you believe the reporter "really means."
People on both the right and left do this all the time, and I have had this argument with folks on both sides. It’s frustrating, because they are sure that they know what the reporter’s biases and sympathies are, and there’s really very little hope of having them step back and examine their own biases and assumptions.
What you said is that the reporter advocated killing protestors. I don’t think this is true. Nowhere in the story does he advocate this. It simply isn’t there. If you say, "but he supports the system, and therefore he shares the guilt when it oppresses the people," then the same could be said of you every time you pay taxes or buy a tank of gas.
It’s a matter of where you draw the line, I suppose. But if we are talking about getting to the truth, we have to start with what the text actually says. And whatever context you want to put it in, the text doesn’t advocate killing anyone. It reports on the protests, it quotes the opposition, it examines the issue of using force. That it doesn’t present enough of the issues you care about is something worth discussing, even worth being outraged about. But why accuse the reporter of wanting to kill people? That’s just inflammatory and deceptive.
He brought up shooting protestors because he found some guy in MIAMI to quote from.
He thought this was needed to be said, I didn't.
He could have just as easily quoted someone in Miami or Havana for that matter that could have said "if these people don't over throw this government quick in the next two years 18,000 indians are going to die of water born disease" but he didn't. Why? Because he wanted to make a different point. The point that to gain stability-more of the same, exporting wealth, high levels of poverty-the protestors need to be shot at. It's "legitmate" after all.
You say you want us to interpret what the text actually says, well I am asking the question, why this text and not others? I will go back to my old song, because he HAS to make an ideological point. If he didn't he would lose his job and be working for The Nation or Granma.
Victor Navasky on IF Stone:
Even after he died, they still didn't quite know how to handle him. In a classic example of the sort of on-the-one-hand, on-the-other-hand journalism against which I.F. Stone fought all his life, the lead paragraph of his obituary in the New York Times neatly balanced his "admirers" against his "critics."
I’ve hesitated to continue this conversation, because I didn’t see the point. I think it’s clear that Anton was overzealous and misrepresented what the NYTs reporter said. Anyone who looks at Anton’s post and the actual article can see that. I’ll say again that I believe it’s difficult to have a meaningful debate about such important issues if we’re not going to be honest about our basic points.
Anton has every right to question the reporter’s emphasis and gatekeeping decisions. I just don’t believe that what the report actually said equals advocating murder, and I don’t think it helps Anton’s cause to twist the reporter’s words to suggest such things, but that’s HIS gatekeeping decision.
But the real reason I’m responding yet again to this post is two articles I stumbled across pretty randomly on the net. One, found at Dan Froomkin’s blog, says,
"In The Washington Post, Kevin Sullivan writes about how Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is something of an "anti-Bush" -- a fiery populist rallying developing nations against United States imperialism.
"In a recent televised speech, Chavez described the arms purchases and a plan to increase army reserve troops as 'an honorable answer to President Bush's intention of being the master of the world.'
"Chavez is the most vocal and visible symbol of a rising tide of anti-American sentiment in Latin America. Leaders in the region are increasingly disillusioned because a decade or more of the Washington prescription -- democracy and free-market economics -- has failed to alleviate poverty and economic inequality."
Now, in Anton’s version of how the media works, Kevin Sullivan is now unemployed. I suspect this is not the case. The truth is, papers like the Washington Post, NYTs and other "liberal, Democratic Party mouthpieces" print a range of opinions and try to cover the news as accurately as they can. As readers, we are free to take issue with the way they cover it. But this questioning of intentions, of equating journalists with dictators and oppressors, is in my mind unfair and distracts us from addressing real problems.
And from another newspaper that is often portrayed as liberal, I give you this very moving and sad opinion piece, which I think Anton would agree deserves a reading:
http://www.startribune.com/stories/1519/5297002.html
the headline:
Mary Turck: Trail of blood leads from Colombia to U.S.
I guess "anyone" can see that? I think not.
Andrew Sullivan would be "unemployed" if he writes a story about Hugo Chavez and his anti-yanqui rhetoric and policies? You fundamentally misunderstand my analysis if this is what you think I am saying?
They, liberal and not so liberal reporters, report the "facts" all the time. In our press we tend to get more information than we know what to do with. We are not lacking in facts. My point is how those facts are assembled on a consistent basis. Hugo Chavez for instance. HC has had more elections to legitemize his regime than George Bush. But when the coup occurred a few years ago the NY Times editorial page endorsed overthrowing a democratically elected government. I know the general thrust of our debate has not been editorial pages but the hegemony of ideas and hiring works in a similar way.
In our liberal system the President doesn't call the editorial page editors up and say we want you to say this, this , and this. What they do is give interviews and access to Tim Russert or Sam Donaldson or David Brinkley or Cookie Roberts instead of Alex Cockburn or Daniel Singer. People who can be trusted to ask the correct questions are invited back and climb the ladder. Questions like should we bomb Iraq or should we invade Iraq? Or Nicaragua is a threat to the US, what are you going to do about it?
The Democratic-Republican debate is well covered in our press, slip outside of that narrow spectrum and see what happens.
Joel Mcnally in Milwaukee is a good example, I know I am mixing editorial and reporting but I think the example is illustrative. JM is probably the best writer in the city and wrote a provacative and entertaining column for the mainstream Milwaukee Journal for years. When the paper merged he got fired. He was outside the spectrum that was allowed by the ownership becuase they want to appeal to a suburban constituency.
Reporters have a similar dilemma. If they consistently cover city hall, by the way a dying breed of story, from a in power-out of power perspective they will have a long career. If they consistantly report from outsiders who think their is a corrupt bargain within the power structure from the left they will most likely be reassigned.
This is even changing now though because the Right is so well funded and slick that the Cato Institute or Bradley Foundation analysis are now "legitamite" and any right wing libertarian can claim the inferiority of the brown races and he'll make a headline.
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