I remember a time in my life when I considered the news to be some sort of deity, speaking truth to the people through a talking head. I must have been about 7 or so, it took a long time to really understand what the news really is, a story.
A story is never completely true, and rarely completely false, but stories are twisted depending on who is telling them. Someone who claims to be objective is not to be trusted, we are human beings, and objectivity isn't our nature.
We can be balanced, and we can talk about facts, rather than pass on rumours.
Chile's military regime relied heavily on a complacent, lap dog press that served as a mouthpiece for their "message." There is no better example of this complacency than what occurred in the aftermath of Operation Colombo.
On July 13, 1975, a mysterious Argentine publication, Lea, in its sole edition, printed the names of 60 people it claimed had been executed by their own comrades in a settling of political scores. Four days later, the list of 119 victims was completed when a small Brazilian daily, Novo O Día, published the names of 59 Chileans who, according to its sources, had died in clashes with military forces in Argentina. Later that month, DINA itself published the 119 names and announced that all had died in military operations in Argentina.
Read today's lead in the Santiago Times for a bit more background.
Monday, November 21, 2005
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2 comments:
I too am part of the growing ranks becoming disillusioned with standard news sources.
The New York Times has furthered this disillusionment with their reporting on the buildup to the Iraq war, the CIA leak, and even their own public editor's comments on NYT editorial policies.
After writing the story in yesterdays ST, I remarked on how easily the 1975 Chileans were duped. The story sounds incredulous now, but I imagine that given national fears of militant communists back then, it wouldnt have been hard to believe that those 119 Miristas killed each other.
And what about all the current rhetoric about terrorists. Can any rationale justify torture?
Is this another Gov't smokescreen like Pinochet used for combatting dangerous ideas?
It is impossible to trust anything Pinochet says, knowing the extent of his crimes.
The same can now be said in the US. Everyone in the Bush administration seems to have lied about something (or used false facts): Bush said no one in his administration leaked Plame's identity. Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Powell, all presented bogus facts about WMD, The Abu Ghraib tortures, etc.
The ex-spokesman for Pinochet, Cuadra reminds me a lot of Ari Fleischer, blindly rubber stamping what the boss says, with no personal integrity attached.
This is why no one trusts anything they read anymore.
me anoto tambien soy uno de los que tambien estan desolucionados con las fuentes de noticias
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