14334: Pina writes: Please Don't Bother Me with the Facts (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: kevin pina <kpinbox@hotmail.com>

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Excerpted from:

Source: Economist, 11/30/2002, Vol. 365 Issue 8301, p32,
Frustration boils over
The Aristide regime is holding off its enemies-but for how long?

"On November 17th some 15,000 people marched in Cap Haitien,and a former
Haitian army officer with coup experience,Himmler Rebu, urged Mr Aristide to
resign. On November20th, four people were shot dead in Petit-Goave. Two days
later, government counter-protesters filled the streets of Port-au-Prince,
the capital, with burning barricades."

New Math: Converting Inconsistency Into Fact:

Stranger than Fiction

Estimates of attendance at the November 17th anti-government rally were
inconsistent. Initial reports from the Associated Press quoted local radio
stations as estimating the crowd at 60,000 but AP was forced to lower the
estimate to 15,000 by the end of the day. Reuters quoted unnamed police
sources to have estimated the crowd at 8,000 while local officials put the
number at 4,000.

The story behind the story of the mindless, violent Lavalas mobs and their
burning barricades:

Thousands of Lavalas militants took to the streets early this morning
setting up flaming barricades at all major intersections in Haiti's capital
of Port au Prince. Their demands were simple, allow President Aristide to
fulfill his five year term in office and put an end to what demonstrators
called "a campaign to destabilize democracy" in Haiti. "Let all those who
would take our freedom away know that we are willing to spill our blood to
defend our democratic rights. Aristide was elected for five years and we are
going to make certain he stays for five years" exclaimed 25 year-old Jean
Baptiste in the poor slum of Bel Air. A woman demonstrating in the slum of
Cite Soleil explained, "I came out here today to stop the Convergence and
the American government from destroying our democracy and taking our
president away from us again." Aristide was forced to spend three years of
his first presidency in exile following a brutal military coup in September
1991.


Source: Associated Press Fri Jan 3, 5:14 PM ET

Haitian government abandons fuel subsidies, prompting major rise in prices
of gasoline, kerosene

By MICHAEL NORTON, Associated Press Writer

"Since mid-November, tens of thousands of Haitians have marched in
anti-government demonstrations, demanding that President Jean-Bertrand
Aristide resign for failing to solve the impoverished country's problems.

Aristide maintains he has brought the country relative peace and progress,
but has been hindered by blocked aid and a combative opposition. He has
refused to step down before his term ends in 2006."

By omitting any mention of the "tens of thousands" of people who have
marched peacefully for democracy during the same period, you get the
impression Aristide has lost his popular support and will eventually be
forced to resign. Would you think the man has any support left anywhere in
the country if you read this knowing little about Haiti? Instead he comes
off as a whiner isolated and out of step with his own people. The mainstream
media seems incapable or unwilling to recognize the mass movement that forms
the base of Lavalas."

The event that never happened:

FACT: There was a massive outpouring of support in the streets of the
capital for President Aristide and Lavalas on November 25, 2002. The
largest number cited in AP and Reuters for a demonstration in front of
Haiti’s
national palace on November 25, 2002, was 2000 persons. Photos taken by
independent journalists show that the crowd was in fact far greater then
the numbers cited. The only photos filed by corporate news organizations on
November 25th were of much smaller anti-Aristide demonstrations and NOT
ONE PHOTO of the much larger pro-Lavalas demonstration was EVER published by
them.

Corbett inserts: to see photos which Kevin Pina took of the
demonstration see:]

http://www.webster.edu/~corbetre/haiti/misctopic/texts/pina-photos.htm


Pina continues:

I am not saying there is a media conspiracy in mainstream reporting about
the situation in Haiti. I wouldn't be so presumptuous to claim that as it
would assume intelligence that has not been evident to me thus far.

I will say that most mainstream reporting is biased in favor of inflating
the image of the "opposition" in Haiti and misrepresenting it as stronger
than it actually is. At the same time any reference to the more than "tens
of thousands" who peacefully demonstrate for democracy in Haiti is nearly
always omitted.  These distortions and misrepresentations do a great
disservice to those in my country that rely upon the media to provide a
realistic assessment of the reality in Haiti today. If they were ever
treated with respect and told the truth they would learn from their news
sources that our flawed foreign policy objectives are merely prolonging
suffering, and the only way democracy can be unseated again is through a
costly and brutal civil war. People would raise their voices loudly in
opposition to US foreign policy in Haiti, if they understood the depth of
support Lavalas still has among the poor majority and that democracy in
Haiti will not simply "go gently into that good night."

Most reporters and their editors abroad seem to suffer from an allergic
reaction to anything that might probe beyond a simplistic image portrayed of
Lavalas.  As a friend of mine once said of his editors, "Hey, I am sorry but
they are not interested in positive stories about Lavalas. I wrote it and
submitted it and they told me they were not interested." What was the story?
It told of how the government expropriated the former mansion of a notorious
drug-dealing Macoute and assassin named Lionel Wooley, a.k.a Ti Je, and
worked with a local grassroots organization to convert it into a school for
the poorest children in Petion-Ville. The school now serves over 200 of the
areas poorest children and tries not to turn down any child whose parents
cannot afford to pay.  With the torture chamber under the swimming pool
sealed forever, the school stands as a beautiful symbol of transforming a
gruesome legacy of the past into hope for the future for Haiti’s youngest
and poorest citizens. Yet you will never read about it in the mainstream
media.

Another example of implicitly forbidden tales of Lavalas success, is the
literacy program and the Alfa-Resto’s that are a safety net for the poor. In
Petion-Ville alone there are 36 Alfa-Restos providing hotmeals for just 5
gourdes a plate to an estimated 4000 people a day. The local organizers at
the Alfa-Resto, located at Delmas 103 in the Ecole Communal, recently
reported citing small groups  of members of the Convergence coming in to eat
as well. I asked them if that bothered them and they replied "No, they are
Haitians too. We don’t have a problem if they are hungry and need to eat
here." The Alfa-Resto at Delmas 103 feeds about 100 adults per day, with an
additional 150 plates reserved for the smallest children.

These two examples, of which there are many more I personally know of, are
central to understanding the grassroots work of Lavalas and hence its
popularity among the poor majority. Unfortunately, you will never get the
opportunity to enjoy these stories woven from the wonderful prose of the
Associated Press, Reuters, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal or
The Miami Herald. It reminds me of the old adage, "I have already made up my
mind so please don’t bother me with the facts."

If you would like to learn more about the fascinating world of the corporate
media, I suggest the following tool and resource:

Excerpted from:

Methods of Media Manipulation

by Michael Parenti

We are told by media people that some news bias is unavoidable. Distortions
are caused by deadline pressures, human misjudgment, budgetary restraints,
and the difficulty of reducing a complex story into a concise report.
Furthermore, the argument goes, no communication system can hope to report
everything. Selectivity is needed.

FULL TEXT AVAILABLE AT:

http://www.media-alliance.org/mediafile/17-5/manipulation.html









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