The NYT's Problem With Leftist Presidents
The NYT's Problem With Leftist Presidents
By Peter Hart
Feb
19
2013
Left-wing Ecuadorean president Rafael Correa was poised to win re-election on Sunday. Given that fact, the New York Times went with a peculiar headline for their February 16 piece:
That's right: "Ecuadoreans Are Apprehensive Over Likely Re-election of President Correa."
Someone at the paper must have seen the irony here and decided to change it; most readers saw instead "Ecuador's President Shows Confidence About Re-election, Too Much for Some."
But the first headline more accurately summarized the article–and the worldview of outlets like the New York Times, which take a far more critical approach towards political leaders on the left.
More:
http://www.fair.org/blog/2013/02/19/the-nyts-problem-with-leftist-presidents/
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They really are slimebags on the Latin American Left. These Cheerleaders-in-Chief for the slaughter of a hundred thousand innocent people in Iraq are repeating their journalistic crimes in their coverage of Venezuela and Ecuador in particular. Their stream of lies and propaganda on these subjects is jaw-dropping.
Really. My memory of the old New York Times still causes my jaw to drop in astonishment at what they have become. On Latin America, they are just a craprag for the 1%. I STILL expect them to be better and they never are. They only get worse. After savaging Chavez for a decade, now they're savaging Correa--the two most popular leaders in the western hemisphere and probably in the world. Most popular and most honestly elected!*
Devilish coverage, with huge black holes where information should be, outright lies and such spin that it makes your head spin. What do they want--another invasion to steal their oil? More coup d'etats? Leftists murdered and thrown out of airplanes? That seems to be their goal--to topple these popular, honestly elected governments, for a return to bloodbath rule by rich elite. But probably another goal is to PREVENT US FROM KNOWING that governments with "New Deal"-like policies are SUCCEEDING--and not just at gaining power but at using power in response to the WILL OF THE PEOPLE.
Heaven forfend that governments become responsive to the people! Heaven forfend that governments begin acting for the 99%!
Nope, they don't want us to know that this is still possible. And these rich snots and their journalistic hirelings, who dare to tout themselves as the U.S. "paper of record," are using their power to try to smash democracy and social justice in Latin America, probably in collusion with the Pentagon and its corporate oil buddies, just as they have done on the wars for oil in the Middle East. It is disgusting--what they used to be, what they could be, and what they are.
This little headline game they just played is spooky, actually. It's as if Rupert Murdoch is putting up their headlines and some rich snot is hissing, 'No! No! Not yet, Rupie! We aren't the Wall Street Urinal...yet. We aren't the Miami Hairball...yet. We gotta look kulchud. We gotta tuck those dirty bits into the tuxedo trousers.'
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*((Jimmy Carter recently said that Venezuela's election system is "the best in the world." I happen to know that Venezuela's election system is honest and transparent, from my own research. Carter knows more--he is intimate with hundreds of election systems and is certainly an authority on them. And it is very likely true that Ecuadorans have worked hard on the honesty and transparency of their election system as well, though I don't know the details. Local and international election monitoring groups are the unsung heroes of this democracy revolution in Latin America.)