Holding reporters accountable

FAIR takes aim at the NYTimes for its biased Cold War era-esque reporting on Nicaragua, while the Bush administration campaigns to prevent a leftist from taking power.

"The article, by Ginger Thompson, characterized the U.S. attempt to overthrow the Sandinista government as part of 'the global struggle against Communism'-- though Nicaragua under the Sandinistas had a mixed economy, multiple opposition parties and a very active opposition press, features that were not found in actual Communist countries. She refers to Daniel Ortega, the Sandinista president of Nicaragua, as a 'revolutionary strongman,' even though he was elected to the presidency in 1984 with 67 percent of the vote, in balloting that international observers found to be 'free, fair and hotly contested' (Extra!, 10-11/87).

"Referring to the Sandinista-led government of the 1980s and the U.S.-sponsored Contra rebels as opposing 'armies,' Thompson wrote, 'The armies fought each other to a standstill, until both sides agreed to elections in 1990, which Mr. Ortega lost.' This summary leaves out the election that Ortega won in 1984, and wrongly suggests that the 1990 elections were held because of Contra pressure, when the Nicaraguan constitution at that time required elections to be held every six years. (That sentence also implies that the Contras directed their fight against the Nicaraguan army, although in fact they chiefly targeted civilians and civilian infrastructure--see Nicaragua: The Price of Intervention, Peter Kornbluh, pp. 39-50.) "

Hmm...wonder how elections in Iraq will be reported on down the line? Coverage is bound to become more and more distorted as it becomes more distant, and Norman Soloman demonstrates how it's obismal as it is now. History repeats itself, and the picture always gets rosier and more favorable for the U.S.:

"The London-based Guardian published a devastating essay bya university lecturer who left Iraq during Saddam Hussein’s rule. Sami Ramadani wrote: 'On Sept. 4, 1967, the New York Times published an upbeatstory on presidential elections held by the South Vietnamese puppet regimeat the height of the Vietnam War. Under the heading "U.S. encouraged byVietnam vote: Officials cite 83 percent turnout despite Vietcong terror," the paper reported that the Americans had been "surprised and heartened" by the size of the turnout "despite a Vietcong terrorist campaign todisrupt the voting." A successful election, it went on, "has long been seen as the keystone in President Johnson’s policy of encouraging thegrowth of constitutional processes in South Vietnam." The echoes of this weekend’s propaganda about Iraq’s elections are so close as to be uncanny.'"

It would seem we haven't been paying attention to our history lessons.