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- Path: sparky!uunet!gatech!ukma!mont!pencil.cs.missouri.edu!daemon
- From: harelb@math.cornell.edu (misc.activism.progressive co-moderator)
- Subject: The Corporate "Free Press" Covers El Salvador Elections
- Message-ID: <1992Nov10.105947.9846@mont.cs.missouri.edu>
- Followup-To: alt.activism.d
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- Organization: misc.activism.progressive on UseNet ; ACTIV-L@UMCVMB
- Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 10:59:47 GMT
- Approved: map@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
- Lines: 75
-
- The Corporate "Free Press" Covers El Salvador Elections
-
- On the sources used by the Times in dealing with the prospective
- Nicaraguan election, it can be seen on Table 2 that the Sandinistas,
- themselves, accounted for only 39.5% of the sources used; critiacal
- U.S. officials and the Nicaragua opposition to the Sandinistas
- accounted for 60.5% (31.5 of which indirect) 31.6 opposition (of which
- half was indirect/half direct)...
-
- It is even more impressive to see the level of suppression of
- inconvenient item sthat are *off* the government's agenda. Note that
- there is no mention of fraud in the 1982 election (line 10), although
- there had been an inflated vote count (election chief Bustamente had
- even admitted a 10% inflation) [4], and more recently the current head
- of the Central Electoral Commission, Dr. Armando Rodriguez Equizabal,
- acknowledged that fraud might well have affected over 25% of the 1982
- ballots [5]
-
- [ES: US41,ES39,FMLN10 ; Nica: US29, FSLN39.5]
-
- [4] See the discussion in Demonstration Elections, pp. 130-133
-
- [5] Julian Preston, "1982 Vote Fraud Cited by Salvadoran Officials,"
- Boston Blove, Feb. 25, 1984. To acknowledge these claims and
- admissions would raise questions about the integrity of the election
- manageers.
-
- The most striking fact about Table 3 is the almost total suppression
- of any discussion of the basic preconditions of a free election. It can
- be seen on lines 11-15 that there is not a single mention in 28
- articles of the issue of freedom of the press, freedom off
- organization, or limits on the ability of candidates to quality and
- campaign freely. Only one article mentioned constraints on free
- speech and three other hint rathe rgingerly at state terror as a
- possible negative influence on voter freedom.
-
- This suppression package is thrown into bold light by the fact that it
- is precisely these issues that the New York Times "news" articles
- feature in the coverage of Nicaraguan, as can be seen on lines 4-7 of
- Table 4. Most dramatic is the dichotomy shown in the treatment of
- freedom of the prss in the Salvadoran and nicarguan elections -- the
- subject is not mentioned once in 28 Times articles on El Salvador
- election; it is mentioned (and usually addressed in detail) in six of
- eight articles concerning elections in nicaragua!
-
- As factual background for this dichotomous treatment, it should be
- noted tha serious opponenets of the Sandinistas can speak and publish
- *in* nicargua; no supproter of the rebels can do so in El Salvador,
- and even liberal papers seeking a middle path have been driven out of
- existence.
-
- It can also be seen on Table 3 that the New York Tims essentially
- suppresses the election sday coercion package. In only four articles
- doe sit mention the legal obligation to vote, in two the requisite
- stamping of the voter's identification card; but these and other
- elements inducing turnout are never brought together and considered
- as a whole.. In not one article is it suggeted that the army-security
- forces interest in turnout, and the army record in dealing with
- "subversivews, " [se AI ES report --------------------] might make the
- legal requirement to vote more compelling...
-
- ------------------------------------------------------------------
- From: "Objective news as systematic Propaganda:
-
- The New York Times on the 1984 Salvadoran and Nicaraguan Elections.
-
- By Edward S. Herman.
-
-
- Edward S. Herman is a professor of finance, Wharton School, University
- of Pennsylvania. His most recent book, with Frank Brodhead, is
- Demonstration Elections: U.S.-Staged Elections in the Dominican
- Republic, Vietnam, and El Salvador" South End Press, 1984.
- ------------------------------------------------------------------
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