Bad News From Haiti: U.S. Press Misses the Story
Beeton, Dan
SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2008 mala aM Media on Latin accura erica cy Bad News From Haiti: U.S. Press Misses the Story mala Dan Beeton is International Communications Center for...
...would not condemn the killings of “over 700” be eager to have this information (while making sure to place some broadcast to American taxpayers...
...On December 22, 2006, cer stadium in Martissant, where a the incident—it was the only U.S...
...For all enquiries, please email info@latinnews.com or call Yolanda Drinot on +44 (0)20 7251 0012 www.latinnews.com 50 SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2008 other atrocities committed since the Systems, which sought to discredit Itens of thousands raped, and national Foundation for Electoral - Inter the and Institute Republican killed, of coverage n contrast the to thousands the scarcity of organizations like the International 2004 coup, during the three years and undermine Aristide’s governof Aristide’s second term (2001– ment.10 Reasonable estimates put early 2004), there were numerous the number of political killings—by articles, editorials, and the police or groups supopeds in U.S...
...Freelance tors rushed to escape...
...3. United States Embassy cable to the secretary of state and the U.S...
...Investigators and police murdered Lavalas after Aristide, when there has been reporters were able to confirm that supporters and others, the Times far more political turmoil and vioonly three to five people had been did not run one editorial mention- lence to document...
...The Miami Herald was 2006 and early 2007 received little ficers in uniform, entered a soc- notable for its editorial condemning attention...
...In 2005 alone, several other journalists were killed, including Abdias Jean, Robenson Laraque, and Jacques Roche...
...According to declassified cables reported from Haiti, some of whom spoke on sent that day from the U.S...
...He said bicoverage of Haiti is inadequate in ased reporting often results from corboth quantity and in presenting respondents’ reliance on elite sources...
...Southern Command, Port-au-Prince, July 19, 2005...
...In the case of Haiti, like other Lindsay described U.S...
...Other key resources include Latinnews Daily Briefing, Latin American Economy & Business, a Latin American Regional Reports series, and our unique Latin America – Asia Review...
...Boulos is a very wellmade an exhaustive inquiry into whether the allegations, by the U.S...
...Since Jean-Bertrand Arislater, just over a few dozen U.S...
...tide demonstration...
...media get to know the country...
...20, 2005, dozens of machete-wieldSimilar Minustah assaults in late ing men, accompanied by HNP ofthe following month, according to a Nexis search...
...10...
...No wonder, then, that Haiti is not rich according to Bogdanich, one of the biggest obstacles to improving coverage of time there is usually very journalists...
...plane, Spanish underscores how little atHaiti as such: “Any story that veers reporter Ricardo Ortega was shot and tention Haiti has received even while from the conventional wisdom is go- killed while covering an anti-Aris- some of the worst abuses in Haiti’s ing to encounter resistance...
...The attention paid to the Aristide administration, and many allegations of human rights abuses dur...
...In a recent press modern history have been commitVeteran freelance reporter Reed conference, his family presented ted...
...The AP, These items typically described the character, assimilating members of Reuters, Knight Ridder, and United incursion as an example of the UN anti-Aristide death squads...
...Embassy in Port-aucondition of anonymity...
...reporting on evidence that foreign troops—pos- conflict zones, the rewards may seem Haiti as suffering from a kind of para- sibly U.S...
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...sort of rampant political repression spent millions of dollars funding and violence it had decried (even the training of police officers, who In 2007, scholar Peter Hallward when evidence was lacking) under then terrorize people or become Aristide...
...The expert analysis of our editorial team is available in a wide range of influential publications and services...
...news terim-government period later turned out to be fab- were well documented, ricated, such as the “La yet unlike in the years Scierie massacre” in the while Aristide was in oftown of St...
...Hallward, Damming the Flood, 155...
...Ibid...
...2. Thomas Griffin, “Haiti: Human Rights Investigation, November 11–21, 2004” (Center for the Study of Human Rights, University of Miami School of Law, 2005), available at www.law.miami.edu/cshr...
...tide disbanded the Haitian Army in army”).6 Like much of the violence newspapers even mentioned the in- 1995, the HNP has been the coun- directed against Aristide supporters cident during the month of July, ac- try’s principal domestic armed force...
...Haiti’s ‘New Chapter,’ ” The New York Times, March 1, 2004...
...bers and other witnesses on video.4 Even though Pina’s documenThe U.S...
...The perspectives Haiti for two years, explained in an that they are exposed to e-mail: “Haiti is not rich in resources, are usually limited and, I is not a significant trading partner, is think, often skewed, and I not a major tourist destination, and think this is often reflected so is not significant to the U.S...
...This is how one reporter describes some editors’ views on Haiti: “Everyone knows the place where most people live in structures made of is a mess, so what are you going to tell me that’s flimsy sheet metal.3 Perhaps as many as 30 peonew...
...Notes 1. For an analysis of media coverage of the “food riots,” see Mark Schuller, “Haitian Food Riots Unnerving but Not Surprising,” Americas Policy Program Special Report (Center for International Policy, April 25, 2008), available at americas...
...papers, porting his government— including The New York during Aristide’s two terms Times and The Washing- in office at between 10 and ton Post, describing and 30...
...media...
...papers bothered eliminating gang members, ignoring documented incident, on August to print anything on the incident in reports of civilian deaths...
...Press Misses the Story mala Dan Beeton is International Communications Center for Economic and Policy Research...
...Walt Bogdanich and Jenny Nordberg, “Mixed U.S...
...Visit nacla.org for more media analysis...
...Our subscribers in government, academia, NGOs, and the corporate sector all need to know what LAN is saying on the issues of today and tomorrow...
...and they do, but their Jennifer Bauduy, a former Reuters correspondent who reported from limited...
...journalists who have on July 6, 2005...
...13...
...Athena Kolbe and Royce Hutson, “Human Rights Abuse and Other Criminal Violations in Port-au-Prince, Haiti: A Random Survey of Households,” The Lancet 368 (September 2006): 864–73...
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...This contrasts with the condemning “despotism” more than 3,000 political under Aristide, whose killings that took place un“corrupt government . . . der the 2004–06 interim regularly used violence government (and the esagainst its opponents” (as timated 50,000 under the one New York Times edito- Duvalier dictatorships).11 rial put it).7 Many incidents of Some of the supposed political violence and state-sanctioned violence atrocities during the indescribed in U.S...
...In number of raids into Haiti’s slums—ostensibly fact, it is the latest episode in a pattern of U.S...
...See also Griffin, “Haiti: Human Rights Investigation...
...As has been documented by human If the U.S...
...the HNP took on a more sinister noticed by the U.S...
...a balanced description of events...
...5. Cited in Peter Hallward, Damming the Flood: Haiti, Aristide, and the Politics of Containment (Verso, 2007), 308...
...Marc, in which fice, editorials expressopposition groups at first ing outrage in papers like claimed that more than The New York Times and 50 people were killed by The Washington Post were hours before Minustah would kill conspicuously Aristide supporters in a absent...
...Marines, who had arrived slim indeed for risking one’s life in chute approach, in which correspon- to ensure Aristide’s removal—were order to uncover atrocities and indents unfamiliar with the country responsible.14 Ortega’s death would convenient truths that might anger swoop in for a week or two...
...See also “Haiti, One Year Later,” The Washington Post, April 5, 2005...
...4. Haiti Information Project, “Haiti’s UN Occupation Forces Carry Out Massacre of Poor in Port-au-Prince,” July 8, 2005, and “Evidence Mounts of a UN Massacre in Haiti,” July 12, 2005, available at www.haitiaction.net...
...Added to this is a combination of What’s more, the vioracism and the language barrier...
...and other activists in the 2004–06 cording to a Nexis search, most of Following Aristide’s ouster in 2004, period, the massacre was hardly them running short newswire briefs...
...papers most brazen in Haiti to occur since aftermath of the shootings and the reported the incident...
...The Washington Post, “A Battalion for Haiti,” June 5, 2005...
...in fact, board member of the Haiti Democthe Post has more than once urged racy Project, a Washington-based Minustah to use greater force in lobby group...
...Haiti’s problems did not sud- and death squads...
...Neither The another raid on Cité Soleil in which, way, and hacked and shot at least six New York Times nor The Washington according to the Associated Press, people to death while other specta- Post reported the incident...
...7. Hallward, Damming the Flood...
...to target armed gangs—that have repeatedly left reporting on Haiti that has given many of the scores of unarmed civilians dead.2 most important stories only a cursory glance...
...irc-online.org...
...Research assistance: Mark Smit...
...Harvard Law School, “Keeping the Peace in Haiti...
...denly arise, yet the media began paying atten- The UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (Mition to them only after the food protests erupted nustah), which began its mission in June 2004, in April, especially after six people were killed has been marred by scandals of killings, rape, and the prime minister, Jacques-Edouard Alexis, and other violence by its troops almost since was forced out of office.1 it began...
...9. Ibid., 153–74...
...Some of this footage is included in Pina’s documentary Haiti: We Must Kill the Bandits (Haiti Information Project, 2007...
...Rosario Gómez, “Militares extranjeros mataron a Ricardo Ortega,” El País, May 10, 2008...
...three of these the bloody reign of terror followstatements of victims’ family mem- ran an AP brief...
...govern- putting down gangs—including in known figure in Washington,” the ment, including Washington-based an editorial on June 5, 2005, just reporter remembers his editor tell51 superficial at best, and often very dis- ers, during the interim government torted, because they don’t have time to headed by Gerard Latortue...
...in resources, is not a significant trading partner, is not a major tourist destination, and so is not significant to the U.S...
...lence in Haiti has not spared New York Times investigative reporter Walt Bogdanich characterized only days after Aristide was ing that period that have part of the challenge to presenting a flown out of the country not stood up to scrutiny, balanced picture of developments in on a U.S...
...media and others, of state-sanctioned human rights abuses during Aristide’s second term are actu- of the blame on “gangs that supally supported by the facts, arguing convincingly that in almost every also have yet to run a single editoinstance the answer is no.9 As Hall- rial condemning any of Minustah’s ward and other investigators have noted, the source for most of these claims were groups that at the time were funded by the U.S...
...me- in their reporting...
...Of course they have to It “has absolutely been skewed and go to the poor neighbormisrepresentative of the reality,” in hoods,” Lindsay added, recent years, Pina said...
...In March 2004, mala ing him by way of explanation...
...Each of the journalists I interviewed recognized that U.S...
...available at www.law.harvard.edu...
...In a now infamous case, Minustah mounted To get an idea of how and why this happens, an assault into Cité Soleil, Haiti’s largest slum, I interviewed several U.S...
...One reporter killed in a clash between pro- and ing—much less condemning—the told me: “If the United States has anti-Aristide groups.8 mala one of the biggest obstacles to improving coverage of Haiti is “finding reporters who care enough to go there, who have the courage to stand up to editors who say there are sexier stories to cover...
...civilians in Cité Soleil.13 February 11, 2004, inci- As death squads and the So why so little attention to Haiti dent...
...6. “Police Vigilantes, Machetes and Murder,” The Miami Herald, September 8, 2005...
...11...
...dominated have rotests in haiti over high food prices in the near U.S...
...See www.haitiaction.net for more...
...The cables were obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the Haiti Information Project...
...for example, Minustah troops staged USAID-sponsored game was under newspaper that did so...
...What goes on there does not affect people ple were killed by the time it was over, includ49 NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS ing the 1991 coup d’etat—marked the debut of what The Miami Herald described as a new “death squad,” the lame ti machete (“little machete mala at least five people were killed (Re- ing a number of children...
...Their mark the first of many attacks on many local authorities—and some coverage,” he said, “tends to be very the press, especially Haitian report- here in the United States...
...media...
...Signals Helped Tilt Haiti Toward Chaos,” The New York Times, January 29, 2006...
...www.mediaaccuracy.org Prince to the State Department, UN troops fired Coordinator at the 22,000 shots in seven hours in a neighborhood by Dan beeton Pof the country in recent months...
...In one Press International all filed stories, mission’s success in its stated goal of particularly disturbing and well- but only six U.S...
...Another reporter says his ediport Mr...
...Find out for yourself the true value of this information...
...12...
...media have failed to cover the sto- rights investigators and declassified U.S...
...The Post did mention and drug traffickers, the U.S...
...Such lack of editorial inter some est has the led these reports have drawn international attention the killing of unarmed civilians by United Nato an urgent situation, they have often lacked tions forces, the Haitian National Police (HNP), proper context...
...press has given atrocities committed by the HNP similar scant tation became available two days treatment...
...Haiti’s Descent,” The New York Times, February 5, 2004...
...52 NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS Haiti is “finding reporters who care enough to go there, who have the courage to stand up to editors who say that there are sexier stories to cover...
...govry of political instability in Haiti with the depth ernment documents, Minustah conducted a it deserves, it is certainly not the first time...
...8. For a more detailed account, see Hallward, Damming the Flood, 159–60...
...Aristide”).12 Both papers tor turned down an investigative piece on Rudolph Boulos, one of the wealthiest men in Haiti and a killings or rapes of civilians...
...14...
...While most shocking incidents of violence, including of of coverage of absence total a to coverage media U.S...
...Reporters Sans Frontieres, “Finger Pointed at US Interposition Force in the 2004 Death of Journalist Ricardo Ortega,” May 13, 2008, available at www.rsf.org...
...uters estimated 20).5 A Nexis search journalist Kevin Pina and his col- This massacre—perhaps one of the leagues documented the immediate reveals that only four U.S...
...SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2008 mala aM Media on Latin accura erica cy Bad News From Haiti: U.S...
Vol. 41 • September 2008 • No. 5
