CHILE NEWS MEDIA CONCENTRATION SLAMMED

[Judi Lynn]

CHILE NEWS MEDIA CONCENTRATION SLAMMED

Book Launch Cut Short By Student Demonstration

(June 3, 2005) Some of Chile’s best-known journalists helped launch a new book by journalist Walter Krohne that sharply criticizes the deleterious effect of media concentration on democracy in Chile.

True to the spirit of the book, “Las dos caras de la libertad de expression en Chile (The Two Faces Of Freedom Of Expression In Chile),” the Thursday event was interrupted by a group of student protesters who also feel their views have not been fairly represented by the media.
(snip)

Krohne documents in his book the uneasy relationship of the past 15 years between Chile’s economic and governing elite, and an emerging alternative news media that is trying to establish itself against tremendous odds.
(snip)

“Chileans today receive just one viewpoint about what occurs in the country and the world: a viewpoint given to them by an ideological monopoly of the Edwards Group (owners of El Mercurio) and Copesa (owners of La Tercera), which together in the Metropolitan Region dominate with 88 percent of total press run … and 93 percent of all readership,” writes Krohne.
(snip/...)

http://www.tcgnews.com/santiagotimes/index.php?nav=story&story_id=9231&topic_id=1

[AP]

1. El Mercurio was subsidized at a loss by CIA during Allende presidency.

Peter Kornbluh writes about this in The Pinochet File (p. 91, chapter subheading is titled "The El Mercurio Project").

So much for the free market.

The CIA said that the propaganda published in El Mercurio played a significant role in setting the stage for the 9/11/73 coup (p. 94).

[Judi Lynn]

2. Sad, sad.Never heard about this before.Sounds like Venezuela, doesn't it?

I'd dearly love to know who's running the Edwards Group.

It's no secret to DU'ers who care enough to check on it that the largest media owner in Venezuela is Gustavo Cisneros who somehow also is a good "fishing buddy" of the eldest _Bush.



Probably the same jerks who have been "molding public perception" here have also been explaining "reality" to everyone else in this hemisphere, keeping everyone completely befuddled.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"The concentration of ownership is brutal. The written press is perhaps the only media where there is no diversity of ideas," sociologist and media consultant Guillermo Sunkel told Reuters. "But I think that is going to change."

But many of Chile's 16 million citizens are yearning for change and supporting an unprecedented boom in small, independent media. In the last two years, at least 10 newspapers, both print and electronic, have been born.

The duopoly in the Andean nation's newspaper industry dates back to 1973, when ex-dictator Augusto Pinochet outlawed all newspapers except El Mercurio, run by the Edwards family, and La Tercera, owned by the Copesa consortium.

Both were Chilean-owned and espoused editorial views in support of Pinochet's free-market economic policies and the social values of the most conservative wing of the Catholic Church.

Now the papers, still very conservative, have an ax to grind with the center-left government in power.
(snip/...)

http://www.paksearch.com/br2002/Jul/12/Chile's%20newspaper%20duopoly%20tightens%20its%20grip.htm

[AP]

7. It also sounds like Kahl-ee-forn-ya during recall election too.

Between the local news totally pulling for Bush, Enron raping electricity customers (and them blaming Davis) and Wall St lowering the state's bond rating...well, you'd think voters would have learned something from the things the US did to Allende and they'd get a little perspective on what's happening in the US as well as in Venezuela today.

[Judi Lynn]

3. Ohmigod, AP. I found info. from Kornbluh which really helps.

DU'ers who haven't heard about this, will find this link horrendous:

The El Mercurio File
Secret Documents Shine New Light on How the CIA Used a Newspaper to Foment a Coup

BY PETER KORNBLUH

September 11, a day of infamy in the U.S., is also a dark day in the history of Chile. This 9/11 marks the thirtieth anniversary of the coup that brought General Augusto Pinochet to power. Although former U.S. officials such as Henry Kissinger have insisted that Washington had no involvement in the military takeover, and was trying only to preserve democracy in Chile, CIA and White House records, analyzed here for the first time, show how the CIA used Chilean media to undermine the democratically elected government of Socialist Salvador Allende, an operation that "played a significant role in setting the stage for the military coup of 11 September 1973." From these documents emerges the story of the agency's main propaganda project — authorized at the highest level of the U.S. government — which relied upon Chile's leading newspaper, El Mercurio, and its well-connected owner, Agustín Edwards. In Chile, the aged Edwards remains an influential media power, and here in the U.S., covert action has again been unleashed and executive-branch secrecy is on the rise. The story behind 9/11/73 continues to echo.

The classified memo shows that Edwards and CIA Director Helms discussed another option: "Timing for Possible Military Action."For the better part of two years, a group of editors, journalism students, and human rights lawyers in Santiago, Chile, have been gathering evidence against their country's leading media mogul, Agustín Edwards, to, at minimum, have him expelled from the press guild, the Academy of Chilean Journalists. The editor of the leftist magazine Punto Final, Manuel Cabieses, has filed a formal petition accusing Edwards of violating the academy's code of ethics by conspiring with the Nixon White House and the CIA between 1970 and 1973 to foment the military coup that overthrew the elected government of Salvador Allende and brought General Augusto Pinochet to power, thirty years ago this month.

"Doonie," as Edwards is known to his closest friends, is the patriarch of the press - a Chilean Rupert Murdoch. His media empire encompasses Chile's renowned national newspaper, El Mercurio, a second national paper, Ultimas Noticias, and Santiago's leading afternoon paper, La Segunda, along with a dozen smaller regional journals. In September 1970, when Chileans narrowly elected Allende, a Socialist, to the presidency, Edwards was widely considered to be the richest man in Chile — and the individual with the most to lose financially from Allende's election.

The ethics charges against Edwards are likely to receive a boost from a careful analysis of formerly secret U.S. documents that shed considerable new light on CIA covert media operations in Chile. Since 1975, when a special congressional committee chaired by Idaho Senator Frank Church issued its report, Covert Action in Chile: 1963-1973, it has been no secret that the CIA provided significant funding to El Mercurio, put reporters and editors on its payroll, and used the paper, in the committee's words, as "the most important channel for anti-Allende propaganda." But with the declassification of thousands of CIA and White House records at the end of the Clinton administration, the history of the "El Mercurio Project" emerges in far greater detail. Among the key revelations in the documents:
(snip/...)

http://www.cjr.org/issues/2003/5/chile-kornbluh.asp?printerfriendly=yes

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Yep, we should have known!

[tlcandie]

4. ANOTHER 9-11 infamous date?!?!?!

:wow: Lots of great info in there. .thanks!

[Judi Lynn]

5. It just takes one's breath away.Right-wing capacity for evil is infinite.

Just when you think you've heard everything. A part of this info. which really chaps me is the fact that not only did Nixon manipulate the Chilean government, he involved us in the torture and murders of so many, many decent Chilean people who were NONE OF HIS BUSINESS, and also spent ungodly amounts of hard-earned U.S. taxpayers' taxes in his evil plot:

• Even before Allende was inaugurated as president of Chile, Edwards came to Washington and discussed with the CIA the "timing for possible military action" to prevent Allende from taking office.
  
• President Nixon directly authorized massive funding to the newspaper. The White House approved close to $2 million dollars - a significant sum when turned into Chilean currency on the black market.
  
• Secret CIA cables from mid-1973 identified El Mercurio as among the "most militant parts of the opposition" pushing for military intervention to overthrow Allende.
  
• In the aftermath of the coup, the CIA continued to covertly finance media operations in order to influence Chilean public opinion in favor of the new military regime, despite General Pinochet's brutal repression.
  
  Republicans: I'd hate to be in their shoes when they can no longer run from the results of their actions.
  

[Judi Lynn]

6. One article I saw said that Augustín Edwards's the Rupert Murdoch of Chile

This other article indicates that the company, which Nixon actually reviatlized with OUR TAXES when it was almost going bankrupt, is STILL an active power in Chile. It has had a violent history in the last 40 years.

Edward’s father, Augustin Edwards, is a sixth generation English immigrant. His ancestors established a newspaper business in Chile in 1877 and by 1990 the Edwards family owned at least three national newspapers, 16 regional newspapers, a radio station and a number of other media outlets. Most notable is the publication El Mercurio, a right-wing newspaper with a circulation of five million in Chile and abroad.

According to former CIA officer Ralph McGehee, El Mercurio received more than US$15 million in funding from the CIA in the early 1970’s. In his self-compiled database, CIABASE, McGehee wrote: "Besides funding political parties, the CIA supported El Mercurio, the country’s largest newspaper and the most important channel for anti-Allende propaganda. For the CIA, these efforts played a significant role in setting the stage for the military coup of September 11, 1973 ."

The Edwards family openly prospered under Pinochet’s regime, a fact that did not go unnoticed by pro-democracy activists. In September 1991, Cristian Edwards was abducted by the Manuel Rodriguez Patriotic Front (FPMR). He was kept in captivity until February 1992, when he was released after his father paid a ransom of US $1.5 million.
(snip/...)

http://www.swsahs.nsw.gov.au/areaser/startts/volunteers/transitions/iss5_a1.htm