Media bias? What media bias!

A must-read post over at Plan Colombia and Beyond (a blog that should win awards it's so damn good at its subject) about how the US censors stories and only allows "good news" stories from countries deemed 'US friendly' and "bad news" stories from countries with a bad relationship with TheWorldPoliceOfficer™

Shocked! Ah Wuz Shocked Ah Say!

PCAB quotes from this Washington Times report that's a fine piece of journalism. What a refreshing change to say that about Moon Daily. Here's an extract:

U.S. embassies are discouraging or suppressing negative reports to Washington about U.S. allies, sometimes depriving officials of information they need to make good policy decisions, current and former diplomats say.

One diplomat told The Washington Times that he has decided to resign in part because of frustration with “rampant self-censorship” by Foreign Service officers and their superiors that has gone so far as to ban “bad news” cables from countries that are friendly with the United States. …

Current and former Foreign Service officers said the censorship reached a peak during the Bush administration. They attributed its continuation to a risk-averse institutional culture.

“Even in highly classified cables, people in the [Foreign Service] are very careful not to speak negatively about their host country,” said the diplomat, who is resigning after three overseas assignments. …

The resigning officer said that, during one of his tours, his ambassador, a political appointee of President Bush, “flat out banned any ‘bad-news’ cables, and made it known at all levels that we were only to produce ‘good-news stories’ about our [host] country,” a U.S. ally.

The officer said he had written “several cables critical of senior leaders” in his host country and about “interference by the government in the electoral process,” but many of them “were either quashed or radically altered.”

On the other hand, he said, negative cables are common regarding countries with strained relations with Washington, such as Burma, Zimbabwe and Venezuela.

Disassociated Press

Sombrero tip to the magnificent Mexfiles.

Your humble correspondent has plainly stated on many occasions that the English speaking media covering Latin America provide a woeful service. The coverage is biased, the message doesn't reflect reality down this way, the etc ad infinitum. But you guys up there go "Hmmm, Otto...just your opinion isn't it?" and insist on crummy things like 'evidence' and 'proof' and stuff. So check out this post from Cowboy in Caracas that has the Disassociated Press's reporter in Venezuela omitting the whole pro-Chávez argument in a recent political issue because he himself..the reporter..didn't believe what the President of his host country was saying.

Here's how the post begins and I heartily recommend that you click through because CIC makes a solid, reasoned and sober argument (unlike the normal rants you suffer through at IKN).

On August 5, Chávez held a special news conference with the international press that lasted several hours. He presented evidence that the rockets were among five that were stolen from the Venezuelan armed forces on February 25, 1995, when a military base was attacked by Colombian guerillas. This was four years before he became president.

In an Associated Press article with the byline of Christopher Toothaker published on the Internet on August 9, mention is made of Colombia’s accusation and that Sweden confirmed the sale of the weapons to Venezuela. (That happened in the late 80s). It also said that, “Chávez denies aiding the FARC.” But the article did not say anything about the weapons being among those taken in 1995.

So I called Mr. Toothaker to ask why he omitted that. He replied that he didn’t “believe” that they were the weapons that were stolen. He added that Chávez said the weapons involved were taken by the ELN, (the National Liberation Army in Colombia). That was pretty much all of our conversation.

Afterwards I was thinking that maybe the weapons that the Colombia government retrieved were taken from the ELN and not the FARC. It is difficult for me to trust anything coming from the Colombian government. I thought about calling Mr. Toothaker again to ask about that possibility, but decided not to do so because I felt I would just receive another of his beliefs.

I, too, have beliefs and I often express them in my writing. But I write commentaries. The Associated Press is supposed to present facts in their news stories, not beliefs. Unless, that is, it is a religion and its readers are supposed to accept whatever it says as an act of faith. The fact that Chávez called a special press conference to explain the source of those rockets seems to me to be a rather important fact that should have had a place in Mr. Toothaker’s article.

CONTINUES HERE