20725: (Chamberlain) 20705: Esser: Re: 20683

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

> Sorry to say: the AP reporting is full of factual mistakes when it
comes to Haiti. The AP does exactly what you accuse other media of --
They twist a story and omit facts until it fits their world view and
also report often very wrong facts without even retracting the
stories later.


The above is an excellent example of the very "twisting" etc. Esser is
talking about.

I referred to "factual inaccuracy."  Omitting facts or "twisting" a story,
while regrettable and sometimes deplorable (though it may not be
deliberate), is not about the simple factual inaccuracy (along with added
twisting and omission) that riddle much of the "militant" media about
Haiti.  Sometimes, the mainstream media corrects errors (you can say not
enough) but I have _never_ seen the likes of Workers World make
corrections, because that would be to admit they weren't, after all, the
great Revolutionary Authorities they set themselves up to be.  It would
spoil the "revelation" (Hess) or, if you like, "the Rapture."


> As any serious student of journalism knows, there's
actually no such thing as unbiased reporting. Every story is colored
by an author's beliefs, even if it's only about selecting what's
newsworthy and what's not.

Of course this is inevitable.  Sounds just like how all human beings
operate in everyday life.  But while the mainstream media believe they
should go beyond this, are mostly trained to do so and mostly succeed in
doing that, the militant press does not believe in this principal and
rarely makes such efforts, because they believe in worship of ideologies,
doctrines and hero-figures such as Aristide.  The result is deliberate, as
opposed to non-deliberate propaganda.  If I want to be informed as much as
possible about current events in Haiti, I know which I prefer.  That
doesn't exclude wading through tiresome ranting about Haiti in Workers
World, but I will spend less time on it because it will give me far less
information.  Other parts of the militant media are more useful, but their
own opinion is still the most important thing, rather than presenting
information and letting readers make up their own minds.


> in the Haitian community in the U.S. there's still strong support for
Aristide and demonstrations are taking place. The majority of the media you
hold in such high
esteem deem such news not as fit to print. Objective? Hardly.

100 here, 100 there, is hardly big priority news.  But it does get reported
in the local media, as shown by Hermantin's copious local feed of the
Florida media.


        Greg Chamberlain