Manufacturing Consent_ The Political Economy of the Mass Media - Edward S. Herman [53]
Mass-Media Coverage of Worthy and Unworthy Victims (1):
A Murdered Polish Priest versus One Hundred Murdered Religious in Latin America
NEW YORK TIMES
TIME and NEWSWEEK
CBS NEWS
Articles1
Column inches
Front-page articles
Editorials1
Articles1
Column inches
No. of news programs1
No. of evening news programs
No.
% of row 1
No.
% of row 1
No.
% of row 1
No.
% of row 1
No.
% of row 1
No.
% of row 1
No.
% of row 1
No.
% of row 1
Victims
1. Jerzy Popieluszko, murdered on Oct. 19, 1984
78
(100)
1183.0
(100)
10
(100)
3
(100)
16
(100)
313.0
(100)
46
(100)
23
(100)
2. 72 religious victims in Latin America, 1964–782
8
(10.3)
117.5
(9.9)
1
(10)
—
—
— —
16
(5.1)
—3
—
—
—
3. 23 religious, murdered in Guatemala Jan. 1980–Feb. 19854
7
(9.0)
66.5
(5.6)
—
—
—
—
2
(12.5)
34.0
(10.9)
2
(4.3)
2
(8.7)
4. Oscar Romero, murdered Mar. 18, 1980
16
(20.5)
219.0
(18.5)
4
(40)
—
—
3
(18.8)
86.5
(27.6)
13
(28.3)
4
(17.4)
5. 4 U.S. religious women, murdered in El Salvador, Dec. 2, 1980
26
(33.3)
201.5
(17.0)
3
(30)
—
—
5
(31.2)
111.0
(35.5)
22
(47.8)
10
(43.5)
6. Total of lines 2–5
57
(73.1)
604.5
(51.1)
8
(80)
—
—
10
(62.5)
247.5
(79.1)
37
(80.4)
16
(69.6)
1. The media coverage is for an 18-month period from the time of the first report of the victim’s disappearance or murder.
2. Listed in Penny Lernoux, Cry of the People (New York: Doubleday, 1980), pp. 464–65. We have omitted the names of seven martyrs who had joined the guerrillas. Lernoux points out that her list is far from complete, and is composed of only the better-known victims.
3. The CBS News Index begins in 1975; our blank figure for this category does not cover earlier years.
4. This is a partial listing only, taken from tabulations of “Religious Killed or ‘Disappeared’ in Guatemala,” put out periodically by CONFREGUA: Conferencia de Religiosos de Guatemala.
2.1.2(b). Stress on indignation, shock, and demands for justice. In a large proportion of the articles on the Popieluszko murder there are quotations or assertions of outrage, indignation, profound shock, and mourning, and demands that justice be done. Steady and wholly sympathetic attention is given to demonstrators, mourners, weeping people, work stoppages, masses held in honor of the victim, and expressions of outrage, mainly by nonofficial sources. The population “continues to mourn,” “public outrage mounted,” the even Jaruzelski condemns the action. The net effect of this day-in-day-out repetition of outrage and indignation was to call very forcible attention to a terrible injustice, to put the Polish government on the defensive, and, probably, to contribute to remedial action.
2.1.2(c). The search for responsibility at the top. In article after article, the U.S. media raised the question: how high up was the act known and approved? By our count, eighteen articles in the New York Times stressed the question of higher responsibility, often with aggressive headlines addressed to that point.8 A number of articles bring in a Soviet link (“Lawyer Seemingly [sic] Implies a Soviet Link in Slaying of Priest” [Jan. 31, 1985]), and Michael Kaufman, of the Times, twice manages to drag in the plot to kill the pope, which the U.S. press, led by the New York Times, had been trying to tie in with the Soviets and Bulgarians.9 These links to the Soviet Union and the Bulgarian Connection are established by finding someone who says what the reporter and his paper want to dredge up—in no case was there a trace of supportive evidence.
Time, Newsweek and CBS News played the same game of aggressively raising questions about “Hints of a Contract from the Top” (Time) and “Keeping the Lid on Murder” (Newsweek), and Time raised questions about possible Soviet involvement as well as the Bulgarian Connection.
2.1.2(d). Conclusions and follow-up. The New York Times had three editorials on the Popieluszko case. In each it focused on the responsibility of the higher authorities and the fact