FAIR is the national progressive media watchdog group, challenging corporate media bias, spin and misinformation.
How is the world ruled and led into war? Diplomats lie to journalists and believe those lies when they see them in print. –Austrian scholar Karl Kraus In March 1982, Congressman David Bonior (D.-Mich.) spoke fervently about Reagan’s Nicaragua policy on the House floor, warning of “a highly orchestrated propaganda effort by the administration, […]
Edgar Chamorro was a Contra leader and press spokesperson from 1982 until 1984, when he resigned. The following year he testified against the United States in Nicaragua’s case before the World Court. FAIR interviewed him in early October as he prepared to visit Nicaragua. Chamorro is the author of Packaging the Contras (Institute for Media […]
On July 17, 1984, the Washington Times broke a story alleging that leading Sandinista officials were involved in cocaine smuggling. The New York Times, the Washington Post, the major wire services and TV networks immediately gave the charges prominent coverage, invariably citing anonymous “senior administration officials.” These officials, according to Newsweek (10/12/87), were Office of […]
A previous issue of Extra! (8-9/87) noted, “It’s taboo in the media to question the motives of American foreign policy.” Case in point: “Nicaragua Over the Years,” a column by New York Times editorial writer Karl Meyer (8/24/87). Meyer reminisced about Major General Smedley Butler, describing him as the US Marine hero who tried to […]
Seemingly surprised when told that many readers consider his reporting sympathetic to the Contras, New York Times Managua correspondent Stephen Kinzer told Esquire (11/86): In Washington, they talk about putting pressure on the Sandinistas, and it sounds so antiseptic. But the reality of that pressure is babies with their arms blown off, the maiming and […]
Although rigged elections during the Somoza era raised hardly an eyebrow in Washington, Nicaragua’s November 1984 election was pilloried by the White House and the mainstream media. Pre-election reporting was hostile, coverage of the actual balloting was hijacked by hysteria over phantom Soviet MIG jets in Nicaragua, and a few months later many journalists seemed […]
“Reagan Reports New Latin Danger” was the headline of a front page New York Times article (1/25/85) in which the President defended his contra policy as “an act of self defense,” citing a Sandinista terrorist link. Juan Tamayo of the Miami Herald (3/3/85) further developed the theme of Nicaragua as a terrorist haven, while a […]
