Latin America — FAIR: Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting

May

1999

On Guatemala, 'The Press Has Blood on Its Hands'

An interview with Allan Nairn

Allan Nairn--Photo Credit: Democracy Now!

More than 200,000 Guatemalan civilians were killed or disappeared during 36 years of civil war ending in 1996, according to a report from the Guatemalan Historical Clarification Commission released in February. The nine-volume, 3,500-page report found that U.S. assistance was a key factor in human rights violations during the armed conflict. Yet Guatemala's human rights ordeal has been almost invisible in U.S. press coverage. FAIR'S CounterSpin (3/4/99) talked about press coverage of the report and of Guatemala with Allan Nairn, who reported extensively from that country in the early 1980s—a period, according to the report, when the Guatemalan government was [...]

Jan

1990

'Noriega Offered His Usual Damp, Limp Handshake to Bush's Firm Grip'

For sheer propaganda, high marks go to Newsweek's Noriega cover story (1/15/90), featuring excerpts from a book about Noriega by Wall Street Journal reporter Frederick Kempe. The book and its author were much touted by the media during the invasion. Some highlights: HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVIST ELLIOTT ABRAMS. "By the summer of 1985, the State Department's new assistant secretary of state for Latin American affairs, Elliott Abrams, began to believe that Noriega's help for the Contras was overestimated and his general harm to democracy and human rights was underestimated. Abrams had come out of State's human rights office...." Abrams hardly "came [...]

Jan

1990

Swallowing Hokum in Central America

During the height of the civil rights movement, Southern authorities frequently reacted to the bombing of a black church or a civil rights leader's home by blaming the act on the Movement: "The Negroes did it themselves. It's a stunt to win sympathy." While the innuendo that Martin Luther King, Jr. would have fire-bombed his own home while his children slept was prominently and uncritically reported in Southern dailies, journalists from national media ignored such hokum or reported it as a way of highlighting how depraved or dishonest the authorities were. Ironically, the same absurd scenarios dismissed by journalists when [...]

Jul

1989

Labor Abuses in El Salvador and Nicaragua

A Study of New York Times Coverage

By Edward S. Herman

Press coverage of human rights in El Salvador and Nicaragua provides an excellent test of journalistic integrity. This is because the US government has staked clear positions: supporting the Salvadoran regime and playing down its less savory qualities; opposing and denigrating the Nicaraguan government while trying to portray the US-organized contras as "freedom fighters." The test is strengthened by the fact that human rights abuses by the Nicaraguan government are modest when compared with those of the government of El Salvador or the contras, as has been regularly documented by organizations like Amnesty International and Americas Watch. After the Central [...]

Mar

1989

U.S. Media on a Terrorist Tirade

By Martin A. Lee and Jeff Cohen

No sooner was it established that Pan Am Flight 103 had been destroyed by a bomb than the U.S. media went into its predictable ritual. Journalists prepared President Reagan and President-elect Bush with all the usual questions: How can we bring terrorists to justice? Will we retaliate against any country harboring those responsible for bombing passenger planes? Reagan and Bush responded with the expected tough-sounding rhetoric, Reagan: "We're going to make every effort to find out who was guilty of this savage thing and bring them to justice." Bush pledged to "seek hard and punish firmly, decisively, those who did [...]

Jan

1988

Questionnaire for the New York Times on Its Central America Coverage

On Jan. 23, 1988, FAIR sent a questionnaire -- excerpted below -- to senior New York Times editors and correspondents covering Central America. It challenged Times coverage following the signing of the Esquipulas ("Arias") regional peace accord, which required all Central American countries to respect human and political rights, and called for an end to all outside support for rebel movements. In a written response, a Times editor referred to the questionnaire as an "indictment" -- but promised that "my colleagues and I will study your questionnaire and put it in the hands of our correspondents." The Reagan [...]

Oct

1987

Media Double Standard On Human Rights

By FAIR

On October 27, 1987, the president of El Salvador's Human Rights Commission, Herbert Ananya, was assassinated in broad daylight on the streets of the capital. He was the seventh official of the group to be murdered or disappear in the 1980s. The story didn't make the front page of The New York Times or the Washington Post. On day two it faded from the network news. The New York Times (10/28/87) framed the issue this way: "Killing in Salvador Imperils Peace Talks." A more telling headline--undercutting years of the Times' coverage--would have been: "Killing in Salvador Raises Doubts About 'Democracy.'" [...]

Aug

1987

Media Put Reagan Spin on Arias Plan

By Jeff Cohen and Martin A. Lee

The signing of the Central America peace accord in Guatemala City set off a U.S. media reaction that showed once again the extent to which White House assumptions are shared by the national press corps. While some reporters have questioned whether President Reagan sincerely supports the Arias plan, virtually all mainstream media accept the administration's contention that its goal is to bring about "a democratic outcome in Nicaragua." Over the years journalists have at times challenged the tactics of the contra policy (mining harbors, assassination manuals, lying to Congress), but they never doubt its objective: to promote "democracy." It is [...]