When Media Tell Us Who ‘Won’ a Latin American Election, Start to Ask Questions
According to corporate media, Noboa’s victory was clear-cut, the reasons for it were obvious and there was little reason to question the outcome.
ACTION ALERT: NYT Ignores Two-Year House Arrest of Lawyer Who Took on Big Oil
The New York Times has not covered Chevron’s bizarre conflict with human rights attorney Steven Donziger since 2014.
Ignoring Repression and Dirty Tricks in Coverage of Ecuador’s Election
Ecuador’s Lenin Moreno jailing political opponents, whom he praised to the skies when he needed them to gain power in 2017, is evidence of sound character to the New York Times—not evidence that Moreno is a cynical person who undermined democracy.
Manufacturing Disgrace: Reuters Distorts Chevron v. Donziger
Independent journalist Chris Hedges (ScheerPost, 8/25/20) wrote: The flagrant corruption and misuse of the legal system to abjectly serve corporate interests in the Donziger case illustrates the deep decay within our judiciary and democratic institutions. One of those deeply decayed institutions is the corporate media, as a review of several years of Reuters coverage […]
Reuters (Unsurprisingly) Looks Away as Ecuador Tries to Outlaw Opposition Parties
Reuters routinely buries information that would badly damage the reputation of US allies in the Americas. Whether those allies are bureaucrats from the Organization of American States and the dictatorship they helped install in Bolivia (FAIR.org, 12/17/19), violent protesters in Nicaragua (FAIR.org, 8/23/18) or Venezuelan politicians who support lethal US sanctions on their own […]
Media Cover for US Clients’ Covid Catastrophes in Peru, Ecuador and Chile
Alongside Brazil, Peru, Ecuador and Chile currently lead South America in total Covid deaths per capita. Unlike Brazil, however, the other pro-US regimes have largely been given a pass.
‘We Have to Look at the Underpinnings of Environmental Degradation’
“Environmental degradation is about… these US corporations, backed by US government, that are allowed to run roughshod over peoples’ lands in the name of, again, profit.”
In Ecuador, ‘Broken Windows Are Intolerable, but Broken People Are Fine’
“Moreno has made such a big deal about the size of the debt, but he’s actually increased it, because he’s given all kinds of tax giveaways to the richest people.”
Dorothee Benz on LGBTQ Rights, Joe Emersberger on Ecuador Protests
The gap between what the law says LGTBQ people merit, and the harms and hardships they experience, can be cavernous.
Whitewashing Neoliberal Repression in Chile and Ecuador
Western journalists stand aghast at the violence of the excluded and exploited in Chile and Ecuador, while rationalizing that spearheaded by Washington-backed opposition elites in Venezuela.
Ecuador’s Austerity Measures, Repression Based on Lies AP Happily Spread
A recent AP piece on Ecuador’s protests was a good example of how elites push for austerity.
Assange Case Shows Support for Free Speech Depends on Who’s Talking
Rather than blasting Ecuador for trampling Assange’s right to free expression and other basic rights, the international press and prominent “human rights” organizations have responded with silence, distortions and even smirks.
Western Media Hail Ecuador’s Cynical President Moreno
President Lenin Moreno’s bullying of the judiciary gets passed over in silence by Ecuador’s media, and the international media follow suit.
‘Chevron Was Just Fabricating a Lie to Get Out of Paying for a Cleanup’
“This is the way to shut down corporate accountability groups, environmental groups, human rights groups, and to silence them.”
Rafael Correa on Communications Law, Laila Al-Arian on Bangladesh
A new communications law in Ecuador seeks to break up powerful media conglomerates, create new community and public media and promote diversity on the airwaves. To US critics, though, it’s really a way for left-leaning president Rafael Correa to silence his detractors. He’ll join us to talk about the law and the press in his country.
Also on CounterSpin today, top: At the first anniversary of the Rana Plaza garment factory collapse in Bangladesh, a new film challenges US corporations’ accountability for workplace conditions at suppliers they always seem to claim not to know. ‘Made in Bangladesh,” from Al Jazeera America’s Fault Lines series, recently won a Peabody Award. We’ll speak with its producer, author and journalist Laila Al-Arian of Al Jazeera English.
Chalk Another One Up to Free Speech Hypocrisy
It seems inadequate for U.S. media outlets to critique the level of free expression in the country where NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden is seeking asylum without comparing it to the level of free expression in the country he is seeking asylum from. While the United States has on paper some of the best guarantees of the right to speak in the world, its practice is considerably more chilling.
Washington Post: Let’s Punish Ecuador (Again)
The Washington Post, clearly missing its old left-wing Latin American target, sneers that “replacing the deceased Hugo Chavez as the hemisphere’s preeminent anti-U.S. demagogue” is Correa’s mission.
Dan Beeton on Ecuador Election, Christine Hong on North Korea
What is it about leftist Ecuadorian president Rafael Correa that U.S. media don’t like? Dan Beeton from the Center for Economic and Policy Research explains. And what context and history would improve our understanding of North Korea? UC Santa Cruz professor Christine Hong has some ideas.
Julian Assange, Erin Burnett and the Battle Over Press Freedom
There seems to be an expectation in the Assange case that a dissident must take refuge with a government with a sterling human rights record. This message is conveyed by journalists whose own country has detained, harassed and killed their journalistic colleagues.
Downsized Reporters Turn to ‘Deceptive’ PR
Writing for CJR.org (6/16/09), Media Bloodhound blogger Brad Jacobson finds that “former CNN correspondent-turned-PR consultant Gene Randall’s video ‘report‘ for oil giant Chevron might be unprecedented for how it blurred the line between public relations and journalism,” but is still more worried that “the Randall/Chevron production raises not only ethical questions, but also the question […]
