Manufacturing Consent_ The Political Economy of the Mass Media - Edward S. Herman [108]
LASA also discussed freedom of the press, which it regards as one of the election’s most troublesome features. It considers the imposition of press censorship to have been damaging to the election’s quality and credibility, even though the argument of the Sandinistas, that a country at war “can’t allow a newspaper which is the instrument of the enemy to publish its opinions freely” (Sergio Ramírez), is viewed as not wholly unreasonable. Nevertheless, while the censorship was also somewhat arbitrary and legalistic, LASA concluded that “The opposition could and did get its message out” (p. 26). And the finding overall was that the Nicaraguan election “by Latin American standards was a model of probity and fairness” (p. 32).
The U.S. mass media did not concur, but it is striking how they avoid comparisons and data. The way in which the media can denounce restrictions on freedom of the press in Nicaragua after having totally ignored the question in El Salvador, where restrictions were far more severe, is remarkable. This process of dichotomization is so internalized that the writers use the double standard within the same article, apparently unaware of their own bias. In an article in the New York Times of March 12, 1984, “Clear Choices in Salvador, Murky Plans in Nicaragua,” Hedrick Smith regards the choices as “clear” in El Salvador, whereas in Nicaragua the problem is whether in an election the Sandinistas will “give up significant power and control.” Multiple parties from the far right to the center-right in El Salvador demonstrate clear choices, but a variety of parties from right to far left in Nicaragua didn’t cause Smith to perceive real choices there, although he didn’t explain why. It apparently never occurs to Smith that there is an issue of whether the army and United States “will give up power and control” (and their determination to fight to victory) by the electoral route in El Salvador.
Are there essential freedoms and absence of coercion in El Salvador that are necessary for a truly free election? Hedrick Smith talks about substantive electoral conditions only in Nicaragua. He provides extensive detail on the trials of La Prensa, press censorship, the Sandinista monopoly of power, and limits allegedly imposed on opposition candidates in Nicaragua. Not a word, however, on death-squad and army murders of civilians in El Salvador or the Draconian laws of the state of siege. How many journalists have been killed in El Salvador? Papers closed? Radio stations blown up? Union leaders and political figures murdered? These questions are off the agenda in U.S.-staged elections, and Hedrick Smith ignores them. As a de facto spokesman for his government, the Times commentator uses doublethink with as much insouciance as Reagan and Shultz.
3.7. QUANTITATIVE EVIDENCE OF SYSTEMATIC MEDIA BIAS
To demonstrate more rigorously the structural bias in media coverage of Third World elections, tables 3–1, 3–2, and 3–3 compare the topics mentioned in the New York Times in its articles on the Nicaraguan and Salvadoran elections of 1984. The tables are organized according to the U.S. government agenda described earlier. The elements in the upper part of the tables are the approved issues—rebel disruption, personalities, election mechanics, etc.—that the government wishes to stress in its sponsored elections. Below the line are the basic conditions and other negative elements that are off the agenda in sponsored elections. Our hypothesis is that the media will follow the agenda, stressing personalities and other elements above the line in sponsored elections and playing down basic conditions, whereas in elections like that in Nicaragua the agenda will be reversed—the stress will be placed on basic conditions.
TABLE 3–1
Topics Included and Excluded in the New York Times’s Coverage of the Salvadoran Election of March 25, 1984*
TOPICS